Updated On: 13 September, 2025 09:17 AM IST | Tokyo | Agencies
As of September 1, Japan had 99,763 centenarians, up 4644 year-on-year, with 88 per cent of them women, the health ministry said in a statement. Japan’s oldest person is 114-year-old Shigeko Kagawa in the Nara region near Kyoto

Japan’s expanding elderly population has led to soaring medical and welfare costs. REPRESENTATION PIC/ISTOCK
The number of people aged 100 or older in Japan has hit a record high of nearly 1,00,000, with almost 90 per cent of them women, ministry data showed on Friday.
The figures underscore the demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks.