Centenarians

thumb|right|Senator Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday (December 5, 2002) thumb|, German architect, pictured on his 100th birthday in 2005 A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100. Because life expectancies at birth worldwide are well below 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. The United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians worldwide in 2012, and 573,000 in 2020, almost quadruple the 2000 estimate of 151,000.