The 100 club

By The Economist online

Five countries will have more than a million centenarians each by 2100

MOST countries celebrate the survival of a citizen for a century with a letter from a president or monarch, or even some cash. This is just about feasible at the moment, when centenarians are still comparatively rare, but it will not be the case for much longer. The chart below, drawn from UN data, shows projections for the five countries that will have more than a million centenarians by the end of the century. China will get there first in 2069, 90 years after its one-child policy was implemented.