Japan’s Population of Centenarians Nearing 100,000

A Nobel Centenarian

As of September 1, 2025, there were 99,763 centenarians in Japan, an increase of 4,644 from the previous year, according to resident registration data. This marks the fifty-fifth annual rise in people aged 100 or over. Japan is well-known for its longevity, particularly women, who account for the majority of centenarians at 88.0%.

Among notalbe new members of the centenarian club is Esaki Reona, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973, who celebrated his hundredth birthday in March.

Japan’s oldest woman is 114-year-old Kagawa Shigeko, who lives in Yamatokōriyama, Nara Prefecture. The oldest man in Japan is Mizuno Kiyotaka, aged 111 and living in Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture.

In 1963, when the government enacted the Act on Social Welfare for the Elderly, there were 153 Japanese centenarians nationwide. That figure has risen steadily since, surpassing 1,000 in 1981 and 10,000 in 1998, and is now on the verge of exceeding 100,000.

The prefecture with the highest ratio of centenarians per 100,000 people is Shimane at 168.7, which is almost 3.5 times as many as Saitama, the lowest at 48.5. Western Japan tends to have higher ratios than the east of the country, and figures are particularly low in the Kantō region, centered on the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Centenarians Per 100,000 Population in Japanese Prefectures

Highest Ratios

Lowest Ratios

Created by Nippon.com based on data published by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare.

Data Sources

• Data on centenarians (Japanese) from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner image © Pixta.)