Japanese Woman Is World's Oldest Person at 116
Tomiko Itooka from Japan is now the oldest person in the world — at 116 — after the previous record holder died.
Itooka, whose 116th birthday was on May 23, has been confirmed as the oldest living person and oldest living woman in the world by Guinness World Records.
A Spanish woman named Maria Branyas Morera, who was 117 when she died, had been the oldest living person.
Itooka was born in 1908, a time of great change in Japan, when Meiji was still the emperor.
Since 2019, Itooka has lived in a nursing home in the city of Ashiya, in Hyogo prefecture, but she has enjoyed a very active life.
According to Guinness World Records, she has twice climbed Mount Ontake, a 3,000-meter peak between Gifu and Nagano prefectures.
She also did the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage — a pilgrimage to 33 Buddhist temples in the Kansai area — twice in her 80s.
Her family believes that walks like these have helped her live for such a long time. Staff at her nursing home say she can still communicate clearly, and she enjoys eating bananas and drinking Calpis, a milky Japanese drink.
Itooka grew up in Osaka, and enjoyed playing volleyball as a young person. She later married and had four children.
During World War II, she managed the office at her husband's textile factory. Her husband died in 1979 — when they had been married for about half a century.
The oldest person in history is thought to have been a French woman named Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 aged 122.
