Sarah DeRemer Knauss was an American supercentenarian. She is the oldest person ever from the United States and, on April 16, 1998, became the world's oldest living person. She is the third-oldest verified person ever, living to the age of 119 years and 97 days. Her birthdate has been independently verified through numerous census and other records.
A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100 years. Because life expectancies at birth worldwide are well below 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. The United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians worldwide in 2012, and 573,000 in 2020, almost quadruple the 2000 estimate of 151,000.
Longevity may refer to especially long-lived members of a population, whereas life expectancy is defined statistically as the average number of years remaining at a given age. For example, a population's life expectancy at birth is the same as the average age at death for all people born in the same year.
Jeanne Louise Calment was a French supercentenarian and, with a documented lifespan of 122 years and 164 days, the oldest person ever whose age has been verified. Her longevity attracted media attention and medical studies of her health and lifestyle. She is the only person in history who has been verified to have reached the age of 120.
A supercentenarian, sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian, is a person who is 110 years or older. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of significant age-related diseases until shortly before the maximum human lifespan is reached.
Marie-Louise Fébronie Meilleur was a Canadian supercentenarian. She is the oldest validated Canadian ever and upon the death of longevity world record holder Jeanne Calment, became the world's oldest recognized living person.
Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper was a Dutch supercentenarian who lived to the age of 115 years, 62 days. She is the oldest person ever from the Netherlands, breaking the previous record of Catharina van Dam on 26 September 2003, and from 29 May 2004 was the oldest verified person in the world. She became the oldest living person in the Netherlands on 16 February 2001, at the age of 110 years and 232 days.
Charlotte Marion Hughes, was a British supercentenarian who, at 115 years, 228 days, is the longest-lived person ever documented from the United Kingdom.
Thomas Peter Thorvald Kristian Ferdinand Mortensen, known as Christian Mortensen, was a Danish-American supercentenarian who resided in California. When he died, his age of 115 years and 252 days was the longest verified male lifespan at the time, until Jiroemon Kimura surpassed him in 2012. Mortensen was baptized in Fruering Church on December 26, 1882. Besides his baptismal record, other records include the 1890 and 1901 census enumerations in Denmark, and church confirmation in 1896.
Longevity claims are unsubstantiated cases of asserted human longevity. Those asserting lifespans of 110 years or more are referred to as supercentenarians. Many have either no official verification or are backed only by partial evidence. Cases where longevity has been fully verified, according to modern standards of longevity research, are reflected in an established list of supercentenarians based on the work of organizations such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or Guinness World Records. This article lists living claims greater than that of the oldest living person whose age has been independently verified, Brazilian woman Inah Canabarro Lucas, aged 116 years, 212 days, and deceased claims greater than that of the oldest person ever whose age has been verified, French woman Jeanne Calment, who died aged 122 years and 164 days. The upper limit for both lists is 130 years.
This is a list of tables of the oldest people in the world in ordinal ranks. To avoid including false or unconfirmed claims of old age, names here are restricted to those people whose ages have been validated by an international body dealing in longevity research, such as the Gerontology Research Group or Guinness World Records, and others who have otherwise been reliably sourced.
Eileen M. Crimmins is the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology of the University of Southern California. Her work focuses on the connections between socioeconomic factors and life expectancy and other health outcomes.
James W. Vaupel was an American scientist in the fields of aging research, biodemography, and formal demography. He was instrumental in developing and advancing the idea of the plasticity of longevity, and pioneered research on the heterogeneity of mortality risks and on the deceleration of death rates at the highest ages.
Events from the year 1997 in France.
Events from the year 1875 in France.
