A record number of centenarians live in Japan

The land of the rising sun is also the land of a quickly aging population.

Japan has 58,820 centenarians, or people who are at least 100 years old, The Associated Press reports. On Monday, the government released the numbers in honor of Respect-for-the-Aged Day.

A Japanese woman, Misao Okawa, is the oldest person in the world at 116. The world's oldest man, 111-year-old Sakari Momoi, also hails from Japan. Nearly 90 percent of Japan's centenarians are women, and the country has some of the highest average life expectancies: 86.61 years for women and 80.21 for men.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In 2013, there were 441,000 centenarians around the globe, and that number will likely climb up to 3.4 million by 2050, the United Nations says. Improved health care is likely a reason why longevity is increasing around the world.