The country with the longest life expectancy is generally Monaco , with an average life expectancy around 86–87 years in recent 2024–2025 estimates.

Who tops life expectancy?

Most recent global rankings that include very small states and microstates place Monaco at the top for overall life expectancy at birth, slightly above mid‑80s in years. When rankings exclude microstates, territories like Hong Kong or countries such as Japan often appear at or near the top instead, usually in the low‑to‑mid 80s.

Why Monaco ranks so high

Several factors are commonly cited to explain Monaco’s very high life expectancy:

  • High incomes and strong social safety nets that support good nutrition and living conditions.
  • Easy access to high‑quality healthcare and preventive medical services.
  • A small, affluent, and highly urbanized population, which can skew averages compared with larger, more diverse countries.

A quick nuance: definitions and methods

Life expectancy rankings can change depending on:

  • Whether the list counts only fully sovereign states or also includes microstates and territories such as Monaco or Hong Kong.
  • Which data source and year are used (UN, WHO, national statistics, or independent aggregators), since each may use slightly different methods and time windows.

Other high‑life‑expectancy places

If looking beyond Monaco, various lists for the mid‑2020s frequently show:

  • Japan, Singapore, and South Korea as high‑ranking countries, often with life expectancy above 83–84 years.
  • European countries like Switzerland, Spain, and Italy also clustering near the top with averages in the low‑to‑mid 80s.

Bottom note

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.