Tase Matsunaga was born in Kiyosato in the Niigata Prefecture, Japan, on 11 May 1884. Soon after her birth, the family moved to Tokyo. Matsunaga later moved from Tokyo, where she lived with her daughter, to Mutsumien in 1983. A farmer for most of her life, she was still gardening when she was 112, but she was mostly bedridden after that. On 31 July 1998, she became the oldest recognized living person in Japan.

Later that same year she died of heart failure at age 114 years, 191 days.