File Photo: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the Inter American Conference on Onchocerciasis in Mexico City, capital of Mexico, on Nov. 14, 2014. (Xinhua/Alejandro Ayala)

WASHINGTON, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Jimmy Carter on Friday passed George H. W. Bush to become the longest-living U.S. president at an age of 94 years and 172 days.

Bush, the 41st U.S. president, died Nov. 30, 2018, 171 days after he reached the age of 94.

Carter, born Oct. 1, 1924, served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 after being the 76th governor of the southern state of Georgia for several years.

During his presidency, Carter, a Democrat, established a national energy policy to deal with energy shortage, strengthened environmental protection, and created the Department of Education, while seeking to address the nation's economic woes of inflation and unemployment.

In foreign affairs, he obtained ratification of the Panama Canal treaties in 1977, helped bring amity between Egypt and Israel through the Camp David agreement of 1978, and established Washington's formal diplomatic ties with Beijing in 1979.

After leaving the White House, Carter became a distinguished professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he continued to teach Sunday school lessons and courses.

In 1982, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, founded The Carter Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization focused on national and international issues of public policy in 1982. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work through the Carter Center in 2002.

The former U.S. president was diagnosed in 2015 with melanoma of brain and liver. He said months later that an MRI scan showed that his cancer was gone after treatment.

Carter attended Bush's funeral service in Washington D.C. in early December last year, along with incumbent President Donald Trump and former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Bush's son, George W. Bush.