The world's oldest person, Susannah Mushatt Jones, has died aged 116.

Ms Jones died at a nursing home in Brooklyn, New York, according to Robert Young, a senior consultant for the Gerontology Research Group. He said she had been ill for the past 10 days.

She was said to be a huge fan of bacon, eating it every day. For breakfast, she always ate four strips of bacon along with scrambled eggs and grits.

Ms Jones was born in a small farm town near Montgomery, Alabama, in 1899. She was one of 11 siblings and attended a special school for young black girls.

After graduating from high school she moved north in 1922 to New Jersey and then New York, where she worked as a housekeeper and childcare provider, according to Guinness World Records and the Vandalia Senior Center in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where she lived.

Jones, who retired in 1965, had said that lots of sleep is the secret to her longevity and that she had never smoked or drank alcohol.

The oldest verified person was Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 at 122 years and 164 days, the research group said.