Japan has crossed a demographic threshold no other nation has reached: for the first time in its history, more than 100,000 people in the country have lived to at least 100 years old. The Ministry of Health in Tokyo announced that 107,677 centenarians now reside in Japan, the highest number relative to population anywhere in the world. Women account for 88 percent of them.
Among the centenarians are two figures who illustrate the longevity of this generation. The oldest woman in the country is Kishimoto Fuyo, 114, who lives in Kyoto. The oldest man is Kato Hikaru, 112, of Kumamoto. Both have lived through nearly a century of Japanese history, from the postwar years and the economic boom to today's digital society.
Health Minister Kenichiro Ueno welcomed the figure, saying it was a source of satisfaction to see so many people living long, healthy and active lives. He credited advances in medicine and technology. But he also struck a note of caution, noting that maintaining a sustainable social security system with an increasingly elderly population remains an open challenge for the government.
Experts who have studied Japanese longevity for years point to diet and lifestyle as the two main factors. The traditional diet, based on fish, vegetables and rice, contains less saturated fat than many Western diets. It is combined with light daily physical activity that older Japanese maintain over time, such as walking, cycling, using public transport and stretching, rather than intense and occasional exercise.
The market has adapted to this reality. For more than a decade, sales of adult diapers have exceeded those of baby diapers, a figure that by itself captures the country's demographic shift. Companies have begun designing products specifically for the elderly, including motorized exoskeletons that assist body movement and glasses with automatic focusing.
Behind the centenarian record, however, lies a problem the Japanese government has been unable to solve for decades: a falling birth rate. For a population to remain stable, each woman should have an average of 2.1 children. In Japan, the fertility rate fell last year to a record low of 1.14. Projections from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research are stark: the total population, which peaked at 128 million in 2008, will fall to 87 million by 2070, a decline of 30 percent. People over 65, who make up about 30 percent of residents today, will approach 40 percent within forty-four years. In 2025 alone, the population declined in 45 of the country's 47 prefectures, and the pace of decline is accelerating.
Authorities have spoken openly of an «existential crisis», while Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has used the phrase «silent emergency» to describe the situation. Numerous financial incentives designed to encourage young couples to have children have so far failed to reverse the trend. Researchers cite multiple causes: fewer marriages, more women choosing to remain in the workforce, and rising costs associated with children's education. Immigration, while growing, remains marginal: foreigners still account for only 3 percent of the population, and political opposition to opening the borders further has increased in recent years.
The centenarian census has a long history. When it began in 1963, just 153 people had passed the age of 100. The figure reached 1,000 in 1981 and 10,000 in 1998. Growth has been rapid since then, leading to the current milestone. The new data were released ahead of Respect for the Aged Day, the national holiday on which Japan honors those turning 100. On that occasion the government sends each centenarian a personal letter along with a traditional cup of sake as a mark of public recognition.
This is not the first time global centenarian statistics have been questioned. Some studies have suggested that errors in civil registries, incomplete documents or missing birth certificates may artificially inflate figures in various countries, and Japan has had to confront this problem as well. A review of registries conducted in 2010 brought to light more than 230,000 people still listed as centenarians whose whereabouts were unknown, some of whom had been dead for decades. The error was partly due to disorderly local record-keeping, but there was also suspicion that some families had concealed the deaths of elderly relatives in order to continue collecting their pensions. Fifteen years after that scandal, the new record of 100,000 centenarians comes with stricter registry checks.
The underlying paradox remains: Japan in 2026 is at once the country where people live longest in the world and the one where fewer and fewer children are born to sustain that longevity over time.