Methuselah, a Great Basin bristlecone pine in California, is the oldest living tree whose age was counted from its rings, at about 4,850 years. These are 13 individual trees ranked by tree-ring age, as of October 2026.
Pictured: a still from Great Basin National Park’s “Bristlecone Pine Tree Ranger Minute”; the species is the one Methuselah belongs to, #1 at about 4,850 years (Methuselah itself is not shown, as its location is unmarked).
Rank
Tree
Species
Age (years)
Location
How dated
Dated by
Notes
1
Methuselah
Great Basin bristlecone pine
4,850
United States (California)
Crossdated cores
Schulman cored 1957; dated by Harlan
Exact tree unmarked; age counts years since sampling
2
Unnamed alerce (OldList)
Alerce
3,622
Chile
Crossdated cores
Lara & Villalba 1993
Not the Gran Abuelo; tree not identified in OldList
3
BLK227
Bald cypress
2,624
United States (North Carolina)
Crossdated cores
Stahle et al. 2019
Oldest wetland tree known; Black River
4
CB-90-11
Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine
2,435
United States (Colorado)
Crossdated cores
Brunstein & Yamaguchi 1992
Oldest of its species
5
Qilian juniper (Delingha)
Qilian juniper
2,230
China (Qinghai)
Crossdated cores
Liu et al. 2019
Oldest tree dated in China
6
SHP7
Foxtail pine
2,110
United States (California)
Crossdated cores
Caprio (Sierra Nevada)
Oldest foxtail pine
7
CMU47a
Utah juniper
1,967
United States (Utah)
Crossdated cores
Pettit & DeRose (Crawford Mountains)
Oldest Utah juniper
8
CRE 175
Rocky Mountain juniper
1,889
United States (New Mexico)
Crossdated cores
Grissino-Mayer & Warren
Oldest of its species
9
Miles Juniper
Western juniper
1,810
United States (California)
Crossdated cores
Miles & Worthington 1998
Sierra Nevada; a named tree
10
BFR-46
Limber pine
1,697
United States (Utah)
Crossdated cores
Tikalsky, Bekker & Bright (Wasatch)
Oldest limber pine
11
ERE
Limber pine
1,670
United States (New Mexico)
Crossdated cores
Swetnam & Harlan
Second-oldest limber pine
12
RCR 1
Foxtail pine
1,666
United States (California)
Crossdated cores
Caprio (Sierra Nevada)
Second-oldest foxtail pine
13
FL117
Northern white cedar
1,653
Canada (Ontario)
Crossdated cores
Kelly & Larson 1997
Cliff-edge cedar, Niagara Escarpment
No matching rows.
Read this first: this ranks 13 individual, non-clonal trees by the age of their rings, using one standard: ages that were crossdated (matched against other trees’ ring patterns) from cores, as listed in the Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research OldList.[1] Each age is a minimum, the age at the point sampled, because a core rarely reaches the exact centre; only Methuselah’s includes the years since it was first sampled, as OldList does. OldList keeps one record per species and place, so this is the oldest dated tree of each kind, not every old tree. Trees OldList marks as dead are not ranked: the Prometheus pine (4,900 years, felled in 1964) and the Scofield Juniper (2,675), and all the dead giant sequoias (up to 3,266). Not ranked because the age is not a ring count: the Sri Maha Bodhi fig in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, which OldList carries at 2,217 years from historical records alone (planted in the 3rd century BCE); the Bennett Juniper (OldList: 2,200, partly extrapolated); and estimated ages such as the Fortingall and Llangernyw yews, the Jomon Sugi and the Olive of Vouves. Clonal colonies such as Pando and Old Tjikko, where the living trunks are far younger than the root system, are not individual trees and are left out. An unnamed bristlecone dated at about 5,060 years by Tom Harlan is not listed because its core cannot be found, and the Gran Abuelo’s 5,484-year estimate is a model, not a ring count.[1][3] OldList flags only dead trees, so the unflagged entries are those it does not report as dead; the database was last updated with new records in 2019. Trees tagged by an ID rather than a name are named by their OldList code.
The Top 10
#1
Methuselah — 4,850 years
A Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) in the White Mountains of California, and the oldest living individual tree whose age has been dated from its rings. Edmund Schulman cored it in 1957, and Tom Harlan worked up the cores decades later. Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research’s OldList gives 4,850 years, and the figure is a minimum, since a core rarely reaches the exact centre. Its location is deliberately unmarked to protect it. The video is a Great Basin National Park ranger talk on bristlecone pines in general, not on Methuselah itself, which stands in a different range.[1][2]
#2
Unnamed alerce — 3,622 years
An alerce (Fitzroya cupressoides) in Chile whose rings were crossdated to 3,622 years by Lara and Villalba in 1993, the second-oldest dated age for any living species. OldList does not name the tree, so this is not the famous Gran Abuelo. That tree, in Alerce Costero National Park, yielded a 2,465-year core in 2020, and a 2022 statistical model by Barichivich put it at about 5,484 years. The modelled age has not been peer-reviewed, so it is not ranked here. The Reuters clip is about the Gran Abuelo and shows the species.[1][3][4]
#3
BLK227 — 2,624 years
A bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) in the Black River swamp of North Carolina, found in 2017 by David Stahle’s team at the University of Arkansas and published in 2019. It is the oldest known living tree in eastern North America and the oldest wetland tree on record, dated from non-destructive cores. Stahle’s own channel supplies the video.[1][5]
#4
CB-90-11 — 2,435 years
A Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata) in central Colorado, dated by Brunstein and Yamaguchi in 1992. It is the oldest known tree of its species, which is closely related to the Great Basin bristlecone but grows in the southern Rockies. No authoritative video of this tree was found, so the icon is shown instead.[1]
#5
Qilian juniper — 2,230 years
A Qilian juniper (Juniperus przewalskii) near Delingha in Qinghai Province, China, dated by Liu and colleagues in 2019. OldList counted it as the seventh-oldest known species. No authoritative video was found, so the icon is shown instead.[1]
#6
SHP7 — 2,110 years
A foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana) in California’s Sierra Nevada, dated by Anthony Caprio and listed on OldList as the oldest of its species. No authoritative video of this tree was found, so the icon is shown instead.[1]
#7
CMU47a — 1,967 years
A Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) in the Crawford Mountains of Utah, dated by Joey Pettit and Justin DeRose. The video is a National Park Service introduction to the species at Canyonlands, not this tree.[1][6]
#8
CRE 175 — 1,889 years
A Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum) in northern New Mexico, dated by Henri Grissino-Mayer and Richard Warren. No authoritative video was found, so the icon is shown instead.[1]
#9
Miles Juniper — 1,810 years
A named western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) in the Sierra Nevada, dated by Miles and Worthington in 1998. The same study dated the Scofield Juniper at 2,675 years, but OldList marks that tree as dead, so it is not ranked. No authoritative video was found, so the icon is shown instead.[1]
#10
BFR-46 — 1,697 years
A limber pine (Pinus flexilis) in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, the oldest limber pine on OldList, dated by Bryan Tikalsky, Matt Bekker and Ben Bright. No authoritative video was found, so the icon is shown instead.[1]
Lara, A. and Villalba, R., 1993, “A 3620-year temperature record from Fitzroya cupressoides tree rings in southern South America”, Science 260 (via OldList); on the Gran Abuelo: Live Science and ScienceAlert on Barichivich’s 2022 estimate and the 2,465-year core.
