Kirsten Schwalbe from Struer in central Jutland is, as of October 14th, the longest-living Dane in history.
At 112 years and 218 days old, she is not only the oldest Dane in history but one of the ten oldest currently living people in Europe.
The oldest living person in Europe is Ethel Caterham, from the UK, who is 117 years old. She is also the oldest living person in the world.
Kirsten Schwalbe has overtaken the position of oldest living Dane from Karla Lindholm Jensen, from Herning, also in central Jutland, who died in 2020.
Schwalbe was born in Salling in central Jutland in 1914, just months before the first world war broke out. She had nine siblings, four of whom also lived until they were over 100 years old.
Ahead of the big day, newspaper Jyllands-Posten tried to get hold of Schwalbe for an interview, which she declined, saying she was taking a day to rest. Instead, they spoke to two of her three daughters.
One of her daughters, 86-year-old Hanne Jensen, pointed out the fact that Schwalbe's children are also old.
"You ask what it's like to have such an old mother, but I'd like to turn that around, because mum can't understand that she has such old children," Jensen said.
"She knows that we're getting older, but she forgets that we can't do everything. It's hard for her to understand because all these years she's been healthy."
In 1938, Schwalbe married for the first time, and she had three children. She still lives in her own home in Struer.
TV Midtvest has previously made a TV programme about Schwalbe, titled Kirstens vilde år, or Kirsten's wild years, which was shown on TV2.
Schwalbe told Danish newspaper Berlingske in 2024 that the key to a long life is partly genetics and partly being a good-humoured person.