LONDON -- London dressed up in a million lights Friday night to say goodbye to the 20th century and welcome the 21st with flaming beacons, a huge Ferris wheel and a skyful of pyrotechnics.

As Big Ben chimed midnight, hundreds of fireworks were set off in waves along the River Thames. For 15 minutes, the sky turned gold, red and green in showers of sparkling light, and the thud and crackle of explosions echoed among the buildings lining the river.

At midnight, Queen Elizabeth II toasted the new millennium with a glass of champagne and kissed her husband, Prince Philip, on the cheek. They linked arms with Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, to sing "Auld Lang Syne."

Earlier, just over two hours before midnight, the queen had sailed down the Thames, the center of festivities, to light a huge millennium beacon afloat on a barge.

A dozen smaller beacons blazed on bridges, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered along the riverbanks in the center of the capital to watch the spectacular display.

For those who couldn't make it to the city's ancient heart, live TV provided a Peter Pan's eye-view of the Thames winding like a glittering black ribbon under the fairy tale ramparts of Tower Bridge all the way to Greenwich -- the home of the Prime Meridian of longitude.

There at the spanking new Millennium Dome, perched by the river like a vast, gleaming spaceship, the prime minister and thousands of guests filled the arena amid swirling light effects for a much-heralded show inside.

Twenty-eight searchlights swept the sky, and The London Eye, the sleek 450-foot-high Ferris wheel built on the south bank of the river to give millennium tourists a great view, loomed behind the ornate splendor of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

The wheel was without passengers after it failed a safety test this week. But people who had won a British Airways-sponsored contest to be inaugural riders received a consolation prize: a free round-trip ticket anywhere the airline flies.

London may have had the biggest party, but in every corner of the British Isles communities put on their own celebrations.

As the sun set on the 20th century, the first of a nationwide chain of beacons was lit on the most northerly outpost of Britain -- the island of Unst in the Shetland Islands, a mere 400 miles from the Arctic Circle.

Across the Irish Sea, President Mary McAleese lit the first of the Irish Republic's 1.3 million candles, and within minutes Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Boyzone singer Ronan Keating set more candles alight on a concert stage in Dublin.

Huge crowds gathered in Northern Ireland's biggest cities, Belfast and Londonderry, for a night of musical festivities, while in Omagh, where 29 people died in an August 1998 bombing, children lit a millennium beacon.

Hundreds of thousands of people across Scotland gathered for their biggest-ever Hogmanay, the traditional Scottish New Year's celebration. About 180,000 revelers gathered in Edinburgh to watch fireworks.