Quito:A 116-year-old woman from Ecuador is now officially the world’s oldest person.

Maria Esther Capovilla took the title froman American woman after relatives sent her birth certificate details to the Guinness World Records.

Elizabeth Bolden, 115, of Memphis, Tennessee, was previously believed to be the oldest.

Mrs Capovilla was born in Guayaquil, in western Ecuador, on September 14, 1889, and still lives with her son and his wife.

She has five children, four grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 1949.

Emiliano Mercado Dei Toro, 114, of Puerto Rico, is the world’s oldest man.