5. Fitzroya Cupressoides, Chile

The Alerce is a common name for Fitzroya cupressoides, a towering tree species native to the Andes Mountains. There's almost no telling how old these trees can get, since most of the larger specimens were heavily logged in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many botanists believe they are the second-longest living trees on Earth aside from the bristlecone pine of North America. To date, the oldest known living specimen is 3,640 years old.

4. Zoroastrian Sarv, Iran

 Sarv-e Abarqu, also called the “Zoroastrian Sarv,” is a cypress tree in Yazd province, Iran. The tree is estimated to be at least 4,000 years old and, having lived through the dawn of human civilization not far away, it is considered an Iranian national monument. Many have noted that Sarv-e Abarqu is most likely the oldest living thing in Asia.

3. Llangernyw Yew, North Wales

The Llangernyw Yew is an ancient yew (Taxus baccata) in the village of Llangernyw, Conwy, North Wales. The tree is fragmented and its core part has been lost, leaving several enormous offshoots. The girth of the tree at the ground level is 10.75 m.

This male yew tree lives in the churchyard of St. Dygain's Church in Llangernyw village. Although it is very hard to determine the age of yew trees, the churchyard gate holds a certificate from the Yew Tree Campaign in 2002, signed by David Bellamy, which states that "according to all the data we have to hand" the tree is dated to between 4,000 and 5,000 years old. There is an alternative theory that presumes the tree is only as old as the adjacent saint site which would make it around 1,500 years old.

2. Methuselah Tree, California

An ancient 4,800-year-old Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, the Methuselah Tree grows high in the White Mountains of eastern California.

Named, obviously, after the Biblical figure that lived for 969 years, the Methuselah Tree grows in the Methuselah Grove, which is in Inyo National Forest's "Forest of Ancients," where it is surrounded by other ancient trees. The exact location of the tree, though, is kept secret to protect it against vandalism.

1. Old Tjikko, Sweden

Old Tjikko is a 9,550 year old Norway spruce tree, located on Fulufjället Mountain of Dalarna province in Sweden. Old Tjikko is the world’s oldest living individual clonal tree, however, there are many examples of much older clonal colonies (multiple trees connected by a common root system), such as “Pando”, estimated to be over 80,000 years old.

The age of the tree was determined by carbon dating of the root system under the tree, not by dendrochronology, or counting tree rings. The trunk itself is estimated to be only a few hundred years old, but the tree as a whole may have survived for much longer due to a process known as layering (when a branch comes in contact with the ground, it sprouts a new root), or vegetative cloning (when the trunk dies but the root system is still alive, it may sprout a new trunk).