Oldest Person in The World Alive Today And Who Was The Oldest Ever
- Editor OGN Daily
- Aug 30
- 2 min read
Today, the oldest person alive (as of August 2025), is the UK's Ethel Caterham.
She is a sprightly 116 years old and was born on 21 August 1909 in Hampshire, UK, during the reign of Edward VII. She currently lives in a nursing home in Lightwater, Surrey and, according to Guinness World Records, she was the second of eight children. Remarkably, her older sister Gladys also made it past the 100 mark, living to 104 years and 78 days.
Her husband, whom she first met back in 1931, died in 1976, leaving behind his classic Triumph Dolomite car, which she still drove until the age of 97. She told the BBC in 2020 that she took “everything in my stride, the highs and lows”. She said: “I listen and I do what I like.”
However, Ethel still has a few years to go before she can overtake the verifiably oldest ever person to have ever lived: Jeanne Louise Calment. The Frenchwoman lived to the ripe old age of 122 years and 164 days old. She was born on 21 February 1875 and passed away aged 122 on 4 August 1997. According to Guinness World Records, Calment “ate almost 1kg of chocolate” every week, and smoked “from the age of 21 and only quit when she was 117.” She also “sold painting canvasses to Van Gogh,” whom she described as “ugly as sin” with a “vile temper and smelled of booze.”
It’s incredible to imagine what Calment and today's supercentenarians (people who are 110 years old or older) have witnessed in their lifetimes.
Just think what it must have been like to be a teenager in the 1920s, to have lived through both World Wars, to have watched the first Moon landings in your fifties or sixties, and then still be alive at the end of the 21st century to observe the latest scientific and technological advances unfold so quickly and dramatically.
What about the oldest man who ever lived? Well, that title goes to Jiroemon Kimura who lived to be 116 years and 54 days old. The Japanese supercentenarian was born on 19 April 1897 and lived through to 12 June 2013. He said his longevity could be attributed to “eat light to live long”. At the time of his death, Jiroemon Kimura had 7 children, 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren and 14 great-great-grandchildren.
The UN estimates that the worldwide life expectancy is now 73.3 years – that's about nine years longer than people lived in 1995.
