Aging & Elderly Trivia
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126 free Aging & Elderly trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This aging and elderly trivia quiz covers the whole subject of growing old: the biology of ageing, the record-holding supercentenarians, life expectancy across history, and the customs, laws and institutions built around older people. The easy questions are ones most adults can reason out, such as what a centenarian is, which organisation sends AARP Magazine, why hair turns grey, and which country first introduced state retirement pensions. From there it digs deeper: the Hayflick limit and telomeres, progeria and Werner syndrome, the disputed blue zones, the Ig Nobel-winning study of pension fraud among the very old, Jeanne Calment's van Gogh story and her ill-fated apartment deal, the immortal jellyfish, the 500-year-old clam and the 200-year-old whale, plus Bismarck's pension age, the first Social Security cheque, Respect for the Aged Day in Japan and the origin of the term senior citizen. Difficulty runs from easy to expert so it works for a family night or a seniors' group as well as a pub quiz. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on ageing, old age, longevity, gerontology and the individual people, diseases and laws named before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Human Body and Medical History quizzes next.
30 of 126 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many living centenarians did the United Nations estimate worldwide in 2020?
573,000
The United Nations estimated 573,000 living centenarians worldwide in 2020, almost four times its estimate of about 151,000 for the year 2000.
Q 02From what age is a person classed as a supercentenarian?
110
A supercentenarian is anyone aged 110 or over; only about one in a thousand centenarians reaches 110.
Q 03Which Frenchwoman is the oldest person whose age has ever been verified?
Jeanne Calment
Jeanne Calment lived 122 years and 164 days, outliving both her daughter and her grandson.
Q 04Which pineal-gland hormone that regulates sleep declines markedly with age?
Melatonin
Melatonin, secreted by the pineal gland at night, sets the sleep-wake cycle; its output falls sharply in old age, one reason older adults sleep more lightly.
Q 05In which Provençal town was the world's oldest verified person born and did she spend her life?
Arles
Jeanne Calment was born in Arles in 1875 and died there in 1997; her father sat on the town council and her husband ran a drapery in the town.
Q 06Which painter did the oldest verified person claim to have met as a teenager in her uncle's shop?
Vincent van Gogh
Jeanne Calment said she met Vincent van Gogh in Arles in 1888, aged about 13, and recalled him as ugly, ungracious and reeking of alcohol.
Q 07At 90, the oldest verified person sold her apartment as a life estate; what happened to the buyer?
He died before her, having paid over double its value
She remarked that in life one sometimes makes bad deals.
Q 08What did the oldest verified person do in January 1985, weeks before turning 110?
Moved into a nursing home
Jeanne Calment moved into the Maison du Lac nursing home in Arles in January 1985, having lived alone until then; her rap CD came in 1996.
Q 09What did the oldest verified person's husband reportedly die of in 1942?
Cherry poisoning
Fernand Calment died in 1942, aged 73, reportedly of cherry poisoning after a dessert of preserved cherries; the couple were double second cousins.
Q 10A 2018 hypothesis claimed the oldest verified person was really her daughter; what was the daughter's name?
Yvonne
The 2018 hypothesis held that daughter Yvonne, officially dead in 1934, took over her mother Jeanne Calment's identity; mainstream gerontologists consider the theory weak.
Q 11Which Japanese man is the oldest man whose age has ever been verified?
Jiroemon Kimura
Jiroemon Kimura of Kyoto Prefecture, who died in 2013, was the last surviving man born in the 19th century; Guinness recognised him as the oldest man ever in December 2012.
Q 12How old was the oldest verified man when he died in 2013?
116
Jiroemon Kimura died in June 2013 aged 116 years and 54 days, the only man ever verified to have reached 116.
Q 13For which employer did the oldest verified man work until he retired at 65?
The post office
Jiroemon Kimura worked for the post office from his teens until retiring at 65 in 1962, then helped farm until he was 90.
Q 21Which Dutchman was the first verified person to reach 110, in 1898?
Geert Adriaans Boomgaard
Geert Adriaans Boomgaard, born in Groningen in 1788, turned 110 in September 1898; the verified record did not pass 115 until the 1980s.
Q 22As of 2024, roughly how many people in recorded history had indisputably reached 115?
About 80
By 2024 only about 80 people had been validated at 115 or older; just three of them, Jiroemon Kimura, Christian Mortensen and Emiliano Mercado del Toro, were men.
Q 23What is the term for someone aged 105 to 109?
Semisupercentenarian
A semisupercentenarian is someone aged 105 to 109; the full term 'supercentenarian', for 110-plus, has been in use since the 19th century.
Q 14Which Japanese woman, who died in 2022 aged 119, is the second-oldest verified person ever?
Kane Tanaka
Kane Tanaka of Fukuoka died in April 2022 aged 119; she was due to carry the Olympic torch in 2021 but withdrew because of COVID-19.
Q 15What business did the second-oldest verified person and her husband run in Fukuoka?
A noodle and sweet-soup shop
Kane Tanaka and her husband Hideo ran a shop selling udon noodles and zenzai sweet red-bean soup; in old age she took up Othello and calligraphy.
Q 16Which Pennsylvanian is the oldest verified American ever, dying in 1999 at 119?
Sarah Knauss
Sarah Knauss of Allentown, Pennsylvania, died on 30 December 1999 aged 119; her daughter Kathryn Sullivan lived to 101.
Q 17How many living generations did the oldest verified American's family span shortly before her death?
Six
Sarah Knauss's family spanned six living generations, from her daughter Kathryn Sullivan down to a great-great-great-grandchild, when she died in 1999.
Q 18In which US city was Maria Branyas, the world's oldest person until 2024, born?
San Francisco
Maria Branyas was born in San Francisco in 1907 to Catalan parents who returned to Spain in 1915; she died in Olot aged 117 in 2024.
Q 19Ethel Caterham, who became the world's oldest living person in 2025, is a subject of which country?
United Kingdom
Ethel Caterham was born in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, in August 1909, making her a subject of the United Kingdom and the last surviving subject of King Edward VII, whose reign ended in 1910.
Q 20Until what age did Ethel Caterham keep driving?
97
Ethel Caterham kept driving until she was 97 and went on playing contract bridge well into her hundreds.
Q 24Which organisation keeps the validated list of the world's oldest living people?
Gerontology Research Group
The Gerontology Research Group, founded in 1990, validates supercentenarian claims and keeps the reference list of the oldest living people; it estimates 300 to 450 living supercentenarians worldwide.
Q 25A study finding that many centenarian counts are inflated by pension fraud won which award in 2024?
Ig Nobel Prize
Saul Justin Newman won the 2024 Ig Nobel Prize in Demography for showing that supposed longevity hotspots coincide with poor birth records and pension fraud rather than long lives.
Q 26What was the term 'blue zone' originally derived from?
Researchers' pen colour on a survey map
Sardinia's Nuoro province was the first proposed zone.
Q 27Which Costa Rican region is one of the suggested blue zones?
Nicoya Peninsula
The Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica's Guanacaste province was named a blue zone for its unusually long-lived men; later cohort studies found the advantage fading.
Q 28Which Greek island is counted among the suggested blue zones?
Icaria
Icaria (Ikaria), in the eastern Aegean, was named a blue zone for its reportedly high share of residents reaching 90; the concept is widely challenged as unproven.
Q 29Who introduced the blue zones concept in 2005 and later formed a company around it?
Dan Buettner
Dan Buettner introduced blue zones in a 2005 National Geographic cover story; his company Blue Zones LLC was acquired by Adventist Health in 2020.
Q 30Which Californian city was added to blue zones marketing after editors asked for a US example?
Loma Linda
Loma Linda, home to a large Seventh-day Adventist community, was added after a National Geographic editor asked Dan Buettner for an American example.