The number of people living in Italy who are 100 years old continues to grow exponentially, with more than 2,000 reaching the milestone age by 2025, most of them women.
Today there are 23,548 Italian residents who are 100-years-old or over, compared to 21,211 in 2024, according to the latest figures from the Istat agency. Italy has more than twice the number of centenarians than it did in 2009, Istat said.
Of those who reached the prime age this year, 82.6% were women. Women also lead the 724 SEMI-REPEAT-REPEAT-REPEAT – people aged 105 and about 19 supencenarians, those in the 110-plus bracket.
Lucia Laura Sangenito, who lives in the Southern Campania region, will celebrate the 115th birthday of Erekhel, 116, in Tessier in ITALY, an Italian woman who turns 115 in May.
Emma Morano, from the northern Piedmont region, held the title of world’s oldest person for 11 months until she died on her 111th birthday on Friday.
The centenarian population is growing rapidly in EU countries, with the number of people in the bloc aged 100 or more forecast to reach Almost half a million by 2050, up from 96,600 in 2019.
France, Italy and Greece have the highest ratio of centenarians per Capita. In the UK, the number of people aged 100 and over increased from 8,300 in 2004 to 16,600 in 2024, According to the numbers was released in October.
In Italy, the southern region of Molise topped the list of centenarians in relative terms, followed by the Aosta Valley and Liguria, Istat said.
Sardinia also boasts a high concentration of indigenous people, leading a cluster of villages on the island identified by the Seven “Blual Zones”, where a significant part of the population lives a long life.
PerdasdeFOGU, a town set in the rolling mountains of South-Eastern Sardinia that can only be accessed on a narrow day, has twice entered the Guinness World Centuries. The first occasion was in 2012, when the nine brothers that make up the Melis family racked up a combined age of centenarians in centenarians with an age of 1.77 in a population of 1,778.
The Mediterranean diet has long been thought to be the main ingredient for the longevity of Italians, combined with strong social connections and a health care system that is generally considered good.
Italian centenarians also tend to be this right. Anna Possi, who will be 101 on 16 November, still works in her bar in a town overlooking Lake MaggIoe, making the oldest Barista on the Lake. He told the Guardian in an interview last year that he would “continue to maintain my health permit”.
In 2022, Candida Udderzo renews her driver’s license at the age of 100. She is among at least four centenarians who have been behind the wheel, changing her license in 2024 shortly after 100.
While Italy’s centenarians are being supported, the aging population is causing problems for the government, especially because it is spurring births, putting pressure on the pension and healthcare systems. In 2024, 370,000 new births will be recorded, the lowest number since the unification of Italy in 1861.