Data and metadata by country
Complete IDL database file | 21 411 | 1 307 | 1968 - 2023 | 2024 |
* There have been 5 successive rounds of IDL updates, in the course of which individuals have been added to the database or countries newly included. These rounds took place in the following periods:
round 1 : 2010
round 2 : 2014 - 2016
round 3 : 2017 - 2019
round 4 : 2020 - 2022
round 5 : 2024
Codebook IDL
Download the “Codebook of IDL Variables” Excel spreadsheet
Liste of variables
Variable | Description |
COUNTRY | Country-provider of data (alphabetic format XXX) |
IDL_ID | Unique and personal identifier number of the supercentenarian / semi-supercentenarian (alphanumeric format) |
AGEYEARS | Age in years (numeric format AAA) |
DAYSSINCEBD | Number of days between the death and the last birthday (numeric format) |
AGEDAYS | Age in days (numeric format) |
SEX | The person’s sex/gender (one-character alphabetic format) |
BIRTH_YEAR | The person’s year of birth (format YYYY) |
BIRTH_MONTH | The person’s month of birth (format MM) |
BIRTH_DAY | The person’s day of birth (format DD) |
BIRTH_COUNTRY | The person’s country of birth (alphabetic format XXX) |
BIRTH_LOCALITY | Municipality, commune, or other equivalent local administrative unit where the person was born (format code Nuts3) |
DEATH_YEAR | The person’s year of death (format YYYY) |
DEATH_MONTH | The person’s month of death (format MM) |
DEATH_DAY | The person’s day of death (format DD) |
DEATH_COUNTRY | The person’s country of death (alphabetic format XXX) |
DEATH_LOCALITY | Municipality, commune, or other equivalent local administrative unit where the person died (format code Nuts3) |
VALIDATION | Code indicating the type of validation (format alphanumeric) |
Values of variables
Variable | Code | Description |
Sex | F | Female |
M | Male | |
BIRTH_COUNTRY / DEATH_COUNTRY |
AUT | Austria |
BEL | Belgium | |
CAN | Canada | |
DEU | Germany | |
DNK | Denmark | |
EAW | England and Wales | |
ESP | Spain | |
FIN | Finland | |
FRA | France | |
JPN | Japan | |
NOR | Norway | |
SWE | Sweden | |
USA | United States of America | |
BIRTH_LOCALITY / DEATH_LOCALITY |
ATXXX | Austria codes NUTS 3: Municipality, commune, or other equivalent local administrative unit where the person was born/died (cf. Excel file for details of codes). |
FRXXX |
France codes NUTS 3: Municipality, commune, or other equivalent local administrative unit where the person was born/died (cf. Excel file for details of codes). All codes were updated according to the official geographic code (code Insee) on January 1, 2023. |
|
UKXXX | United Kingdom codes NUTS 3: Municipality, commune, or other equivalent local administrative unit where the person was born/died (cf. Excel file for details of codes). | |
VALIDATION | YES | YES: indicates that a validation procedure was successfully completed. This means that an early life document – preferably a birth record, a baptism record, or an early census record – was available and has been checked. Similarly, the date of death of a fully validated case must be backed up by a document, such as a death certificate or an entry in a death index. For several countries, the validation procedure is not documented as thoroughly as the full validation criteria require, but individual cases have been carefully checked. For example, in some cases the local residence register may have officially confirmed a date of death, but did not issue a personal document on the individual. There may also be cases in which the sequence of entries in national censuses had been carefully checked by the respective national statistical office over the course of the individual’s life. |
SAMPLE OUT | SAMPLE OUT: indicates that the record was not included in the sample for validation. This implies that the individual was not validated, but that a random sub-sample of the population was. All cases selected for sample validation (from the population of interest: 105-109 years) must have a validation equal to "YES". |
* NUTS - NOMENCLATURE OF TERRITORIAL UNITS FOR STATISTICS. For more information, please refer to the Eurostat documentation available here.
About the data files
The IDL data are classified by country. For each country, there is a data file available: List of individuals who died at ages 105 and above.
This data file is available in Excel (.xls) and Text (.txt) formats:
each record in the data file contains information about one individual; each person included in the IDL has only one record. These files have the corresponding names: idl_XXX_dead_105+.xls; with XXX representing the country code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code). In addition to the data files, there is a metadata file that provides a general overview of the data, as well as a short description of the age validation process used in that particular country. It is essential to take this information into consideration when performing demographic analyses.
About the metadata files
Metadata files are available for download for every country in pdf format. These files contain information on the original data sources and the data collection process, including information on the selected birth cohorts, the age range of the data, and the time window in which the information was sampled. Where available, information on the age validation procedure is also provided in the metadata file.
The name of the metadata file is idl_metadata_XXX.pdf, with XXX representing the country code.
Confidentiality of IDL data
In most cases, thorough validation of the age of individuals who died at extreme ages can only be done by accessing personal information. The person’s name, for example, is needed in order to match census information with birth, marriage or death certificates. The contributors to the IDL have to comply with all data confidentiality regulations in their country and may only authorize specially trained personnel to perform the age validation. No personal information is provided to the public version of the IDL, and personal information is not made available to researchers or anyone else not involved in the validation process.