Original photo by IanDagnall Computing/ Alamy Stock Photo
When Jeanne Calment was born in France on February 21, 1875, the Eiffel Tower had yet to be built and the telephone wouldn’t be invented for another year. When she died on August 4, 1997, she’d lived the longest life in recorded and verifiable human history: 122 years and 164 days. A longevity expert who knew Calment attributed her record-setting lifespan to the fact that she was wealthy, didn’t smoke until much later in life, and had “absolutely nothing to do except to take care of [herself], to visit France and have social activities.”
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factThough we won’t know if they’re correct for quite some time, some scientists do indeed believe recent medical advancements have made a lifespan of 150 years feasible — and that the first person to reach that age has already been born.
There are an estimated 722,000 centenarians — people at least 100 years old — living in the world today, with Japan responsible for more than any other country (roughly 146,000). The vast majority of people who reach that milestone are women, and the oldest man to ever live, Jiroemon Kimura, “only” reached 116. Anyone perusing a list of the world’s oldest people alive today would currently have to scroll down past the top 20 names before reaching a man. Women tend to live longer than men in general, with a mix of genetics, hormones, and lifestyle choices most often cited as the main reasons for their longevity.
Numbers Don't Lie
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The term for someone who lives to be 110 is “______.”
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The term for someone who lives to be 110 is “supercentenarian.”
The number of U.S. centenarians is expected to quadruple in the next 30 years.
As of 2025, there were about 101,000 centenarians in the United States, but the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that number will quadruple to about 422,000 by 2054. Centenarians currently account for 0.03% of the population, a number expected to reach 0.1% in the same time frame.
Japan is the only country with more centenarians than the United States, with China, India, and France rounding out the top five. On a per capita level, Japan is most impressive: 12 out of every 10,000 people reach 100, compared to three in the U.S. and fewer than one in China and India.
Michael Nordine is a writer and editor living in Denver. A native Angeleno, he has two cats and wishes he had more.
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