A Statistics Canada study that shows people in Richmond, B.C., have a higher life-expectancy than those in Japan has stumped at least one expert.

The report Health Indicators, released Tuesday, shows that babies born in Richmond today can expect to live to an impressive average of 83.4 years, two years more than the average in Japan, which tops the World Health Organization's rankings.

"That's ridiculously high," John Hsieh, a professor of biostatistics at New York's University of Rochester, told CBC News Online. Hsieh said that Richmond's average age means that there are many people living to almost 100 and very few who are dying in their 60s.

"This can't be due to environmental reasons."

Hsieh said the city's high life-expectancy is more likely because of immigration patterns and genetics than healthy living. Chinese and south Asians make up 60 per cent of the city's 176,000 residents.

Historically, he said, those migrants came from countries that had high infant mortality rates where only the strongest babies survived.

"The weak infants were weeded out, so what's left is a long-living people," said Hsieh, who is also a professor emeritus at University of Toronto.

His only other explanation is that Statistics Canada simply got its figures wrong.

Previous studies have found people in Richmond have the lowest smoking and obesity rates in the country.

Canadians on average live to 79.5 years, putting them ninth in the world.

At the other end of the spectrum is Nunavik, Que., which posts the lowest life expectancy rate in Canada at 66.7 years.

According to Statistics Canada, people living in northern and remote regions, many of whom are aboriginal, have life expectancies more in line with developing countries. If Nunavik were a country, it would rank 112th of 191 countries, between the Dominican Republic and Egypt.

Smoking, heavy drinking and high mortality rates due to suicides and accidents are also prevalent in these northern regions, says the government agency.