TOKYO: That Saburo Shochi completed a round the world trip using only public transport was impressive enough; that he did so at the age of 106 was even more remarkable. Yet in his native Japan, there is no shortage of contemporaries with whom Shochi can celebrate his feat.

According to data released by the government on Friday, he is one of more than 50,000 Japanese people aged 100 or more.

The survey by the health and welfare ministry shows the number of centenarians will rise to 51,376by Saturday, up 3,620 from last year.The figures, released before the country's annual respect the aged day on Monday, reinforce Japan's reputation for longevity, although its women recently relinquished their place at the top of the global life expectancy table to their counterparts in Hong Kong. On Monday, those who reached their 100th birthday in the past year will receive a silver cup and a congratulatory letter from the prime minister.

The average lifespan of Japanese women fell by 0.4 years to 85.9 in 2011, putting it behind that of women in Hong Kong, who averaged 86.7 — a shift attributed in part to the large number of elderly victims of the 2011 tsunami.

Women account for more than 87 per cent of Japan's centenarians, although the country's oldest resident is a man, 115-year-old Jiroemon Kimura, who lives in Kyoto prefecture. The oldest woman is Koto Okubo, a 114-year-old resident of Kawasaki, just outside Tokyo. When the survey began in 1963, Japan was home to just 153 centenarians, and the number still stood at just 10,000 as recently as 1998.

Experts attribute the dramatic rise of the 100-plus generation to older people's fastidious attachment to the traditional low-fat Japanese diet, strong community ties, affordable healthcare and comparatively generous pensions.

By arrangement with the Guardian