Kane Tanaka

Tanaka being recognised by Guinness World Records, March 2019

**Kane Tanaka** (Japanese: 田中カ子; 2 January 1903 – 19 April 2022) was a Japanese supercentenarian who held the title of the oldest living person in the world since the death of Chiyo Miyako from 22 July 2018, until her own death on 19 April 2022. At the age of 119 years, 107 days, she is also the second-oldest validated person in history, behind Jeanne Calment.

## Personal life

Tanaka was born as Kane Ota on 2 January 1903 in the village of Wajiro (now part of Higashi-ku, Fukuoka), on the southern island of Kyushu, the third daughter and seventh child of her parents, Kumayoshi and Kuma Ota. Kane and her family claim that she was actually born on 26 December 1902 and that her parents delayed the process of filing the report for a week because they weren't sure if she would survive. Kane was born prematurely. Kane's early childhood was during the last years of the Meiji period, which ended when she was nine, in 1912. Kane married her cousin Hideo Tanaka in 1922, with whom she had two sons and two daughters. The couple also adopted a third daughter during their marriage, the second daughter of Hideo's sister. Kane's eldest daughter died shortly after birth and her second daughter died at the age of one in 1947, while her adoptive daughter died in 1945 at the age of 23 of an unspecified illness.

The couple worked in a store selling shiruko and udon noodles. Kane's husband was later drafted into the military service, which lasted from 1937 to 1939; one of her sons was captured towards the end of World War II, as a military POW, and was held captive in Siberia before being released and returning home in 1947. After World War II, the couple continued working in the store, with Kane converting to Christianity under the influence of pastors stationed by the United States military. Retiring from working at their store at 63, Kane traveled to the United States in the 1970s to visit her relatives in California and Colorado.

Her husband died in 1993 at the age of 90, after 71 years of marriage. Kane lived in a nursing home in Higashi-ku, Fukuoka from September 2018, and was reportedly still in good health on her 118th birthday. Tanaka was supposed to hold the Olympic torch at the 2020 Summer Olympics, although she pulled out of it due to concerns regarding an increase in COVID-19 cases in Japan. She occasionally played Othello and took short walks in the nursing home's hallways until not long before her death. Her hobbies included calligraphy and solving arithmetic problems. She left five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

## Health and longevity

Tanaka has had several major illnesses, and was infected with paratyphoid fever with her adopted daughter at the age of 35. She underwent pancreatic cancer surgery at the age of 45. In 2006, Tanaka was diagnosed with colorectal cancer and underwent surgery when she was 103 years old. Her life and longevity were noted by her second son and his wife four years later when they published a book called: In Good and Bad Times, 107 Years Old. At the age of 114, she was interviewed by KBC in September 2017. On 9 March 2019, Tanaka was officially presented with the "World's Oldest Living Person" and "World's Oldest Living Woman" titles by Guinness World Records, verifying her longevity claim. On 19 September 2020, she broke the record of longest-lived Japanese person ever, as well as the third-oldest person ever in the world, after surpassing Nabi Tajima's age of 117 years, 260 days. She has thus lived through all five imperial reigns that make up modern day Japan, with the first, the Meiji era, having ended in 1912.

Tanaka said that she wanted to live to the age of 120, crediting her faith in God, family, sleep, hope, eating good food, and practicing mathematics for her longevity.

## Death

Tanaka died on 19 April 2022, at the age of 119 years, 107 days, but her death was not announced until 25 April.