Tokyo (EFE).- The number of centenarians in Japan has reached a new record by exceeding 99,000 for the first time, the government said Friday, days ahead of Respect for the Aged Day.
According to data from the health ministry, they have registered a record 99,763 people aged 100 years or older in the archipelago, an increase of 4,644 individuals from the previous year, a figure that has continuously increased in the last 55 years.
Women account for 88 percent of the total, with 87,784 people, while the number of male centenarians is 11,979.
The oldest person in Japan is Shigeko Kagawa, a 114-year-old woman from Yamatokoriyama city in Nara prefecture, and the sixth oldest person in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps a record of global centenarians.
The oldest male in the Asian country is Kiyotaka Mizuno, 111, a resident of the city of Iwata, in Shizuoka.
Japan has reached an average of 80.58 centenarians per 100,000 inhabitants. By prefecture, Shimane, in the western part of the territory, tops the concentration chart, with an average of 168.69 centenarians per 100,000 residents.
When this data began to be collected in 1963, there were 153 centenarians in Japan. In 1981, it exceeded 1,000 and in 1998 it exceeded 10,000, an increase in longevity that experts attribute mainly to the development of medical technologies and treatments.
According to the health ministry, the life expectancy of Japanese people is 87.13 years for women and 81.09 years for men. EFE
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