How old are the world's oldest people?

Apr 29, 2022

With the collaboration of Statista.

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

Martin Armstrong

Data Journalist, Statista

Our Impact

What's the World Economic Forum doing to accelerate action on Health and Healthcare Systems?

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Global Health is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

Global Health

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.

Discover

What is the World Economic Forum doing about including older people in the workforce?

There is a global myth that productivity declines as workers age. In fact, including older workers is an untapped source for growth.

The world has entered a new phase of demographic development where people are living longer and healthier lives. As government pension schemes are generally ill-equipped to manage this change, insurers and other private-sector stakeholders have an opportunity to step in.

The World Economic Forum, along with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and AARP, have created a learning collaborative with over 50 global employers including AIG, Allianz, Aegon, Home Instead, Invesco and Mercer. These companies represent over two million employees and $1 trillion in annual revenue.

Learn more in our impact story.

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

These 'supercentenarians' (above) have lived more than 10 years past 100 Image: Statista/Gerontology Research Group

Have you read?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.