The number of Japanese aged 100 and over has reached a new record.
On Monday - national Respect for the Aged Day - there will be 58,820 centenarians, the Health Ministry estimated, some 4,400 more than the previous year.
About 87 per cent are women.
The number of 100-year-olds in Japan has steadily increased over the last few decades.
When official records began in 1963 the tally of people over 100 was 153.
The growing number of elderly in Japan, ascribed partly to advances in medicine and a healthy local cuisine, in combination with low birth rates, is sometimes referred to as the country's "demographic timebomb", due to the increased pressure on health services and the country's welfare system.
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