Maria Gomes Valentim, Brazilian super-centenarian (d. 2011)
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 dealing in longevity research, such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or Guinness World Records (GWR), and others who have otherwise been reliably sourced.
The longest verified human lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875–1997), who lived to age 122 years and 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 known oldest people.As women live longer than men on average, women predominate in combined records. The longest lifespan for a man is that of Jiroemon Kimura of Japan (1897–2013), who lived to age 116 years and 54 days.
Since the death of 117-year-old Chiyo Miyako of Japan on 22 July 2018, 119-year-old Kane Tanaka, also of Japan, born 2 January 1903, is the oldest living person in the world whose age has been validated. Since the death of 112-year-old Saturnino de la Fuente García of Spain on 18 January 2022, 112-year-old Juan Vicente Pérez Mora of Venezuela, born 27 May 1909, is a candidate for the world's oldest known living man.