"This is a world record. They live even longer than Japanese men," Oloef Gardarsdottir, a spokeswoman for the agency, told AFP.

Japanese men live on average 78.6 years.

"We don't have an explanation. It's really difficult to give a reason why," she said.

Icelandic women meanwhile have a life expectancy of 82.9 years, among the highest in the world.

Japanese women have an average life expectancy of nearly 86 years, according to United Nations statistics.

Icelandic men and women lived on average more than 81 years in 2007, not far behind Japan at 82 years and ahead of France at almost 81 years.

The North Atlantic island has long lived off of the fishing industry but has undergone a vast transformation since the mid-1990s, in particular due to a booming financial sector.

The Nordic country is one of the richest in the world, and has a population of 313,400.

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