Tokio Watanabe facts for kids

Tokio Watanabe (渡部時雄; Watanabe Tokio; 12 December 1899 – 6 February 2010) was a Japanese farmer and supercentenarian, who currently is unverified by the Gerontology Research Group. He is the oldest known man ever from Ehime Prefecture where he was born.

Watanabe married at age 22 and had two sons (of whom one died in the Pacific War) and six daughters with his wife, who died at age 42. He worked in the agriculture until age 95 and was at age 100 still able to mow the grass and take care of himself.

On 17 January 2010, upon the death of Kiyotoshi Inoue who was just two days older, Watanabe became the second oldest known living man in Japan behind Jiroemon Kimura (who one day later was just 13 weeks shy of his 113th birthday) and the third oldest known living man in the world as well as the youngest of only three known living men born before 1900, behind Kimura and Americanman Walter Breuning (who was 30 weeks older than Kimura).

Watanabe died of pneumonia at a hospital in his hometown Kumakōgen, Ehime Prefecture at age 110 years, 8 weeks on 6 February 2010, just nine days before Tanekichi Onishi's 110th birthday, and was succeeded as Japan's second-oldest living man by Onishi. Watanabe was the last known living man born in 1899.