The oldest known person in the world has died peacefully at her home in the United States aged 116, media reports said Thursday.

Jeralean Talley, who kept up her bowling hobby until the ripe-old age of 104, passed away on Wednesday in Inkster, near Detroit, the Detroit Free Press said.

Friends told the newspaper that she prayed not to suffer.

"God certainly answered her prayer," said Michael Kinloch, her longtime friend.

The deeply religious Talley was born in the southern US state of Georgia at the tail end of the nineteenth century on May 23, 1899.

"Just remember her as being a very beautiful, forgiving person," said her daughter Thelma Holloway, 77, adding that Talley had been in a hospital for a week before being brought home on Saturday.

"She went away peacefully," Holloway said.

Talley is survived by her daughter as well as three generations of grandchildren, the newspaper said.

Her husband of 52 years, Alfred Talley, died in 1988 when he was 95 years old.

The mantle of world's oldest person now hands over to another woman, Susannah Mushatt Jones, born July 6, 1899.

The oldest person ever was Jeanne Louise Calment, according to Guinness World Records.

She died in her native France in 1997 aged 122 years and 164 days.