Number of Okinawa’s centenarians up to 920

September 14, 2011 Ryukyu Shimpo

On September 13, the Okinawa Prefecture Department of Welfare and Health announced the number of people now aged 100 years or more and the list of the oldest people in the prefecture.

As of September 15, there were 920 centenarians, down two from the previous year.

With regard to the number per 100000 people in the prefecture, the figure for Okinawa was 66.04, down 0.67 from the previous year. This is the third highest in Japan after Shimane Prefecture in first place with 75.70, and Kochi Prefecture in second place with 67.58.

Okinawa had monopolized first place since 1973, but dropped to second in 2010.

A spokesperson of the Longevity Policy Office of the department explained this, saying, “The reason for this drop in the rankings may be that while the overall population of Shimane and Kochi has decreased, that of Okinawa has increased by 11000.”

As for the gender ratio of people aged 100 or more living in Okinawa, the number of women was 803, representing 87.2% of the total, while the number of men was 117.

The oldest woman is a 113 year-old resident of Okinawa City and the oldest man a 109 year-old resident of Urasoe City.

In 2011, 329 elderly people (280 women and 49 men) are expected to turn 100 years old, an estimated increase of 22 people over the previous year.

In the breakdown of centenarians by municipalities, Naha City claimed the top spot with 64, followed by Itoman City with 25, and Urasoe City and Okinawa City, which both have 19 people.

(English Translation by T&CT, Mark Ealey)

Go To Japanese


　


Previous Article:
Next Article:

[Similar Articles]