Someone who was born on the last day of 1899 would now be 113 years old. There are just a handful of people of this age left on Earth. They are the last remaining survivors of the 19th century; what in Britain was the Victorian Age and internationally historian Eric Hobsbawm dubbed the “age of Empire”.

Only 16 of these links to history now remain alive*, according to the latest data by specialist research team the Gerontology Research Group.

The vast majority of these super-centenarians live in Japan and the US. Four of the world’s five oldest people live in Japan. Japan is also the stand-out leader in population density terms, with 12.8m citizens per 19th century survivor, compared to the US’s 28.4m. Read more