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 that specifically deals in
longevity research, such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or
Guinness World Records (GWR), and others who have otherwise been
reliably sourced.According to this criterion, the longest human
lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875â€"1997), who lived
to age 122 years, 164 days. She supposedly met Vincent van Gogh when
she was 12 or 13. She received news media attention in 1985, after
turning 110. Subsequent investigation found documentation for
Calment's age, beyond any reasonable question, in the records of her
native city, Arles, France. More evidence of Calment's lifespan has
been produced than for any other supercentenarian, such that her case
serves as an archetype in the methodology for verifying the ages of
the world's oldest people. However, Calment's age was nevertheless
disputed in a 2018 study which hypothesized that Calment's daughter
Yvonne, born in 1898 and who is reported to have died in 1934, usurped
Jeanne's identity upon her mother's death,[undue weight? â€" discuss]
and which is not resolved over one year later. Other researchers have
dismissed this hypothesis on the basis of extensive prior research
into Calment's life.
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 that specifically deals in
longevity research, such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or
Guinness World Records (GWR), and others who have otherwise been
reliably sourced.According to this criterion, the longest human
lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875â€"1997), who lived
to age 122 years, 164 days. She supposedly met Vincent van Gogh when
she was 12 or 13. She received news media attention in 1985, after
turning 110. Subsequent investigation found documentation for
Calment's age, beyond any reasonable question, in the records of her
native city, Arles, France. More evidence of Calment's lifespan has
been produced than for any other supercentenarian, such that her case
serves as an archetype in the methodology for verifying the ages of
the world's oldest people. However, Calment's age was nevertheless
disputed in a 2018 study which hypothesized that Calment's daughter
Yvonne, born in 1898 and who is reported to have died in 1934, usurped
Jeanne's identity upon her mother's death,[undue weight? â€" discuss]
and which is not resolved over one year later. Other researchers have
dismissed this hypothesis on the basis of extensive prior research
into Calment's life.
Share this
SUBSCRIBE OUR NEWSLETTER
SUBSCRIBE OUR NEWSLETTER
Join us for free and get valuable content delivered right through your inbox.