Blue Zones

Blue Zones is an anthropological concept that describes the characteristic lifestyles and the environments of the world's longest-lived people. The term first appeared as an international concept in the November 2005 National Geographic magazine cover story "The Secrets of a Long Life" by Dan Buettner. Buettner identified five geographic areas where people live statistically longest: Okinawa (Japan); Sardinia (Italy); Nicoya (Costa Rica); Icaria (Greece) and among the Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. He offers an explanation, based on empirical data and first hand observations, as to why these populations live healthier and longer lives.

The concept grew out of demographic work done by Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain outlined in the Journal of Experimental Gerontology, who identified Sardinia's Nuoro province as the region with the highest concentration of male centenarians. As the two men zeroed in on the cluster of villages with the highest longevity, they drew concentric blue circles on the map and began referring to the area inside the circle as the Blue Zone. Together with demographers Pes and Poulain, Buettner broadened the term, applying it to validated longevity areas of Okinawa, Japan and among the Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. Buettner and Poulain, under the aegis of National Geographic, then identified and validated longevity hotspots in Nicoya, Costa Rica and Icaria, Greece.

The five regions identified and discussed by Buettner in the book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest:

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