In April 2018, Nonaka was officially recognised as the oldest living man on the planet and was added to the Guinness Book of Records.
He was born on 25 July 1905 and fathered five children, two of whom were still alive as of 2018. In recent years, the oldest man in the world lived with his grandchildren on hot springs at the foot of Mount Meakan on the island of Hokkaido.
He loved to read newspapers, watch sumo fights and opera performances.
Masazo Nonaka, who has died in Japan at 113 as the world's oldest man, was born in 1905 when Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity.#oldestman #OldestPersonhttps://t.co/NcaUIMwEAi
— Kyodo News — English (@kyodo_english) January 20, 2019
Following the record holder's death, German Gustav Gernet, born October 15 1905, is now the oldest man alive.
Earlier, Holocaust survivor Israel Yisrael Kristal, 112, was recognised as the world's oldest man after documents confirming his age were found in Poland. The archives contained materials indicating that the man lived in the city of Lodz in 1918, while he was in his mid-teens.
The Japanese are traditionally considered to be one of the most long-living people on the planet, and the East Asian state has the highest life expectancy of any country in the world.
