The world’s oldest person Misao Okawa from western Japan has died less than one month after celebrating her 117th birthday.

The mother of three, grandmother of four and great-grandmother of six was recognised as the world’s oldest living person by Guinness World Records.

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Ms Okawa was born on March 5, 1898, and was the daughter of a kimono shop owner in Osaka.

She died on Wednesday in a nursing care facility in the western Japanese city, the Kyodo news agency reported.

In February 2013, Ms Okawa was certified as the world’s oldest woman. Later that year in August, following the death of 116-year-old Jireomon Kimura in June, she officially became the oldest living person in the world at 115, News Ltd reports.

Ms Okawa said the key to a long life was ‘eat and sleep and you will live a long life’. Photo: Getty

When asked what the key to a long life was, Ms Okawa said: “eat and sleep and you will live a long life”.

In an interview with UK’s The Telegraph, Ms Okawa said sleeping at least eight hours each night — and taking the occasional nap — was the secret to a long life.

“Eat and sleep and you will live a long time,” she said in a message to The Telegraph. “You have to learn to relax.”

Her favourite meal was sushi — “particularly mackerel on vinegar-steamed rice, and she has it at least once every month” — and until 102, she found that doing squats kept her body in shape.

During her extremely long life, Ms Okawa witnessed two World Wars (WWI in 1914-1918, and WWII, 1939-1945); the Holocaust; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, which killed more than 130,000 people and remain, to date, the only use of nuclear weapons in history; and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Japan, known for the longevity of its people, is also home to the world’s oldest man – 112-year-old Sakari Momoi.

In 2013, life expectancy for women in Japan was 86.61, the longest in the world, while for men it was 80.21, the fourth longest, according to the health ministry.