Welcome to Running: A FEVER. This is Michael Davis. Running: A FEVER is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. And I want to do that by loving my life enough to make it last as long as possible.
And now it’s time for the perennial favorite top 10 list of the oldest people ever. Living to be 100 is still very rare. According to World Population Review, in 2025, there were an estimated 573,000 to 630,000 centenarians worldwide, though estimates vary wildly, I can tell you. A centenarian is someone who is over 100 years old. The breakdown by country is interesting. Japan has the most, with 123,330. The U.S. is second, with far fewer, 73,629. Then China and India. It’s interesting because these are absolute numbers, not per-capita numbers. You’d think China and India would be up there, and Japan is tiny in comparison. If you want to see the complete list, visit the reference links in the blog post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/442.
Globally, about 88% of centenarians are women, a trend that is reflected in the U.S. and other countries, probably because females have a higher life expectancy. And all the people in the top 10 oldest people ever are women.
So how much of this really applies to us? I hope it applies to me, but I really don’t know. Right now, there’s no formula for living to 100—just not enough data.
Spoiler alert. There are no changes to the list this year; it’s the same as it was in 2025. The oldest living person is 116 years, 66 days, as I am researching the episode. And the 10th-oldest person ever was 117 years, 81 days old. So I can already tell you that the 2027 list will also be the same.
The people on this list have documented proof of their age. That documentation is verified by organizations such as the Gerontology Research Group, LongeviQuest, or Guinness World Records. I’ll give you the whole list in countdown fashion. We call people who have lived longer than 110 years super-centarians, and all of the people on the 2026 top-ten list qualify.
Number 10 on the list is Japanese citizen Chiyo Miyako. Chiyo lived from 1901 to 2018, a total of 117 years, 81 days.
Emma Morano of Italy is 9th with 118 years, 137 days. She lived from 1899 to 2017.
Coming in at number 8 is Maria Branyas, who joined the list just last year. She’s a citizen of the United States and Spain. She was born in 1907 and died in August of 2024. She earned her seat by living 117 years, 168 days.
Number seven: Violet Brown from Jamaica, who lived from 1900 to 2017, 117 years, 189 days. She’s the only Jamaican on this list.
Number six, from Canada, is Marie-Louise Meilleur, who lived to 117 years, 230 days, from 1880 to 1998.
Fifth on the list is Nabi Tajima, the 2nd-oldest Japanese person ever, 1900-2018, 117 years, 260 days.
Lucille Randon remains at number 4, the 2nd-oldest Frenchwoman ever. Born in 1904 and dying in 2023, Lucille lived to be 118 years, 340 days.
Coming in at number 3 is American Sarah Knauss, who lived from 1880 to 1999. She reached the age of 119 years, 97 days. She is the only American on the list, except for Maria Branyas, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Spain.
Kane Tanaka, of the centenarian capital of the world, Japan, is second on the list. She lived 119 years, 107 days, from 1903 to 2022. She is one of only three people in the 119 club.
And the all-time oldest person is the same person it has been since 1988, Jeanne Calment of France. She lived from 1875 to 1997, 122 years, 164 days.
These are all women, of course. No man has made it in the top 10, at least not recently. The oldest man is Japan’s Jiroemon Kimura, who lived to 116 years, 54 days.
The oldest living person as of this writing is Ethel Caterham of the United Kingdom, born on the 21st of August, 1909. She is the 28th-oldest person ever. If she lives into 2027, she may enter the top 10 list.
The oldest living man, as of this writing, is Joao Marinho Neto, a Brazilian. He is 113 years, 21 days old. He’s still hanging on and has reached number 26 on the all-time longest-living men list.
Whenever a new person joins the list, I do a more detailed biography. So you can look up past episodes where I featured everyone on the list right now. In the show notes at http://RunningAFEVER.com/442, you can see links to all these old episodes featuring individual stores about the longest-lived people.
And recently I did new episodes on Jeanne Calment and Sarah Knauss. Look for episodes 403 and 404 on Madame Calment, and episode 425 on Mrs. Knauss. There’s some new information in there, even though they have both been dead since the 90s. Look for some future episodes too. I’m going to branch out and look at some of the oldest men ever, and maybe some of the unverified claims of ages even exceeding Jeanne Calment’s, some over 129 years. What do you think of those ideas? Let me know in the comments.
It really inspires me every year to see that it’s possible to live to a ripe old age. And it gives us motivation as we work toward our goal of living long, happy, healthy, and active lives.
Remember, if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning. And if you don’t, catch the fever, and I’ll see you next time on Running: A FEVER.
Biographical episodes on individuals in the list:
1. Jeanne Calment http://RunningAFEVER.com/170
2. Kane Tanaka http://RunningAFEVER.com/212
3. Sarah Knauss http://RunningAFEVER.com/169
4. Lucille Randon http://RunningAFEVER.com/251
5. Nabi Tajima http://RunningAFEVER.com/168
6. Marie-Louise Meilleur http://RunningAFEVER.com/166
7. Violet Brown http://RunningAFEVER.com/165
8. Maria Branyas http://RunningAFEVER.com/387
9. Emma Morano http://RunningAFEVER.com/164
10. Chiyo Miyako http://RunningAFEVER.com/163
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_people
https://tinyurl.com/raf-centenarians-2025
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/centenarians-by-country