Health and Healthcare Systems

How old are the world's oldest people?

Oldest people in the world are all women.

The oldest people in the world are all women. Image: Unsplash/Trevor McKinnon

Martin Armstrong
Data Journalist, Statista
  • The oldest person in the world is French born Lucile Randon, who is 118.
  • She took the title after Japan's Kane Tanaka recently died at the age of 119
  • The world’s oldest people are all women.

With the passing of Japan's Kane Tanaka at the age of 119 this week, the title of 'oldest living human' has been bequeathed to the French born Lucile Randon. At the ripe old age of 118, she sits atop the infographic below, showing the age and birthplace of the oldest living people on Earth. All women, the countries of birth most represented here are Japan and the United States; accounting for two each, with the U.S. figure growing to four when expanding to a top ten. All entries have been validated by the Gerontology Research Group.

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Do these 'supercentenarians' have any advice for living for so long? Emma Morano, born in 1899 and who died in 2017 at the age of 117 was thought to have been the last person alive to have lived in three different centuries. The Italian apparently put her long life down to leaving her husband in 1938 and the consumption of two raw eggs and some raw minced meat every day.

The oldest people in the world

An infographic showing the oldest people in the world
These 'supercentenarians' (above) have lived more than 10 years past 100 Image: Statista/Gerontology Research Group
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