Doan Van Chan claims to be the oldest man alive. His age, however, has not been authenticated by a reliable authority in longevity such as the Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...

 or the Gerontology Research Group

Gerontology Research Group

The Gerontology Research Group was started in 1990, and is a global eGroup of researchers in gerontology, some of who also meet monthly at UCLA in Los Angeles, California. The primary function of the group is to further gerontology research, with the objective of reversing or retarding aging...

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Chan had nine children and only three are still alive and the oldest is Doan Thi Hien who is 82, Doan Van Tien, 70 and Doan Thi Luyen who is 68. His wife died in 1943 when Chan was only 49.

Chan is in possession of an ID card, issued in 1970, showing 1894 as the date of birth. His brother denied that the ID card had been forged to avoid conscription, as the French colonialists did not demand this service of Vietnamese peasants. If his age were proven, he would be the world's oldest living man

Oldest people

This is a list of tables of the verified oldest people in the world in ordinal rank, such as oldest person or oldest man. In these tables, a supercentenarian is considered 'verified' if his or her claim has been validated by an international body that specifically deals in longevity research, such...

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