Former US president Jimmy Carter has died, aged 100.

The earnest Georgia peanut farmer who as US president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday. He was 100.

US President Joe Biden directed that January 9 will be a national day of mourning throughout the United States for Carter, the White House said in a statement.

"I call on the American people to assemble on that day in their respective places of worship, there to pay homage to the memory of President James Earl Carter," Biden said.

Carter, a Democrat, became president in January 1977 after defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. His one-term presidency was marked by the highs of the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, bringing some stability to the Middle East.

Jimmy Carter walks with his wife Rosalynn and daughter Amy along Pennsylvania Avenue following his inauguration in 1977. – AP

But it was also dogged by an economic recession, persistent unpopularity and the Iran hostage crisis that consumed his final 444 days in office. Carter ran for re-election in 1980 but was swept from office in a landslide as voters embraced Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor.

Carter lived longer than any US president and, after leaving the White House, earned a reputation as a committed humanitarian. He was widely seen as a better former president than he was a president – a status he readily acknowledged.

 "I can't deny I'm a better ex-president than I was a president."

– Jimmy Carter in 2005 interview with reporters

World leaders and former US presidents paid tribute to a man they praised as compassionate, humble and committed to peace in the Middle East.

"His significant role in achieving the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel will remain etched in the annals of history," said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a post on X.

President Joe Biden pays tribute to Jimmy Carter. – AP

The Carter Center said there will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington. These events will be followed by a private interment in Plains, it said.

Final arrangements for the former president's state funeral are still pending, according to the center.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son.

“My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honouring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

In recent years, Carter had experienced several health issues including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain. Carter decided to receive hospice care in February 2023 instead of undergoing additional medical intervention. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died on November 19, 2023, at age 96. He looked frail when he attended her memorial service and funeral in a wheelchair.

Carter left office profoundly unpopular but worked energetically for decades on humanitarian causes. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his "untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

Jimmy Carter in North Darfur, Sudan, in 2007. – Reuters

Carter had been a centrist as governor of Georgia with populist tendencies when he moved into the White House as the 39th US president. He was a Washington outsider at a time when America was still reeling from the Watergate scandal that led Republican Richard Nixon to resign as president in 1974 and elevated Ford from vice president.

"I'm Jimmy Carter and I'm running for president. I will never lie to you," Carter promised with an ear-to-ear smile.

Asked to assess his presidency, Carter said in a 1991 documentary: "The biggest failure we had was a political failure. I never was able to convince the American people that I was a forceful and strong leader."

Despite his difficulties in office, Carter had few rivals for accomplishments as a former president. He gained global acclaim as a tireless human rights advocate, a voice for the disenfranchised and a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, winning the respect that eluded him in the White House.

Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti. His Carter Center in Atlanta sent international election-monitoring delegations to polls around the world.

Jimmy Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during the signing of the Camp David Accords. – Reuters

A Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher since his teens, Carter brought a strong sense of morality to the presidency, speaking openly about his religious faith. He also sought to take some pomp out of an increasingly imperial presidency – walking, rather than riding in a limousine, in his 1977 inauguration parade.

The Middle East was the focus of Carter's foreign policy. The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, based on the 1978 Camp David accords, ended a state of war between the two neighbours.

Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for talks. Later, as the accords seemed to be unravelling, Carter saved the day by flying to Cairo and Jerusalem for personal shuttle diplomacy.

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children."

– Carter's 2002 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

The treaty provided for Israeli withdrawal from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and establishment of diplomatic relations. Begin and Sadat each won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.

By the 1980 election, the overriding issues were double-digit inflation, interest rates that exceeded 20 per cent and soaring gas prices, as well as the Iran hostage crisis that brought humiliation to America. These issues marred Carter's presidency and undermined his chances of winning a second term.

'It's a great loss for our world': Plains, Georgia residents remember Jimmy Carter. - AP

Hostage crisis

On November 4, 1979, revolutionaries devoted to Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, seized the Americans present and demanded the return of the ousted shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was backed by the United States and was being treated in a US hospital.

The American public initially rallied behind Carter. But his support faded in April 1980 when a commando raid failed to rescue the hostages, with eight US soldiers killed in an aircraft accident in the Iranian desert.

Carter's final ignominy was that Iran held the 52 hostages until minutes after Reagan took his oath of office on January 20, 1981, to replace Carter, then released the planes carrying them to freedom.

Jimmy Carter with Soviet President and party chief Leonid Brezhnev in 1979. – AP

In another crisis, Carter protested the former Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He also asked the US Senate to defer consideration of a major nuclear arms accord with Moscow.

Unswayed, the Soviets remained in Afghanistan for a decade.

Carter won narrow Senate approval in 1978 of a treaty to transfer the Panama Canal to the control of Panama, despite critics who argued the waterway was vital to American security. He also completed negotiations on full US ties with China.

Carter created two new US Cabinet departments – education and energy. Amid high gas prices, he said America's "energy crisis" was "the moral equivalent of war" and urged the country to embrace conservation.

"Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth," he told Americans in 1977.

Jimmy Carter waves to the crowd at the inauguration of 40th President Ronald Reagan in 1981. – AP

In 1979, Carter delivered what became known as his "malaise" speech to the nation, although he never used that word.

"After listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America," he said in his televised address.

"The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.

"The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America."

'There you go again'

Jimmy Carter withstood a challenge from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination but was politically diminished heading into his general election battle against a vigorous Republican adversary.

Reagan, the conservative who projected an image of strength, kept Carter off balance during their debates before the November 1980 election.

Reagan dismissively told Carter, "There you go again", when the Republican challenger felt the president had misrepresented Reagan's views during one debate.

Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan, who won 44 of the 50 states and amassed an Electoral College landslide.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in 2015. – Reuters

A long life

James Earl Carter Jr was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, one of four children of a farmer and shopkeeper. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1946, served in the nuclear submarine program and left to manage the family peanut farming business.

He married his wife, Rosalynn, in 1946 – a union he called "the most important thing in my life". They had three sons and a daughter.

Carter became a millionaire, a Georgia state legislator and Georgia's governor from 1971 to 1975. He mounted an underdog bid for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, and out-hustled his rivals for the right to face Ford in the general election.

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America."

– Carter's January 14, 1981, presidential farewell address

With Walter Mondale as his vice presidential running mate, Carter was given a boost by a major Ford gaffe during one of their debates. Ford said that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration", despite decades of just such domination.

Carter edged Ford in the election, even though Ford actually won more states – 27 to Carter's 23.

Not all of Carter's post-presidential work was appreciated. Former President George W Bush and his father, former President George HW Bush, both Republicans, were said to have been displeased by Carter's freelance diplomacy in Iraq and elsewhere.

In 2004, Carter called the Iraq war launched in 2003 by the younger Bush one of the most "gross and damaging mistakes our nation ever made". He called George W Bush's administration "the worst in history" and said Vice President Dick Cheney was "a disaster for our country".

In 2019, Carter questioned Republican Donald Trump's legitimacy as president, saying "he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf". Trump responded by calling Carter "a terrible president."

Jimmy Carter with other former presidents George HW Bush, Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton in 2009. – Reuters

Carter also made trips to communist North Korea. A 1994 visit defused a nuclear crisis, as President Kim Il Sung agreed to freeze his nuclear program in exchange for resumed dialogue with the United States. That led to a deal in which North Korea, in return for aid, promised not to restart its nuclear reactor or reprocess the plant's spent fuel.

But Carter irked Democratic President Bill Clinton's administration by announcing the deal with North Korea's leader without first checking with Washington.

In 2010, Carter won the release of an American sentenced to eight years hard labor for illegally entering North Korea.

Carter wrote more than two dozen books, ranging from a presidential memoir to a children's book and poetry, as well as works about religious faith and diplomacy.

Significant milestones in life and career of Jimmy Carter

• October 1, 1924: James Earl Carter Jr is born in Plains, Georgia, son of James Sr and Lillian Gordy Carter.
• June 1946: Carter graduates from the US Naval Academy.
• July 1946: Carter marries Rosalynn Smith, in Plains. They have four children, John William (“Jack”), born 1947; James Earl 3rd (“Chip”), 1950; Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff), 1952; and Amy Lynn, 1967.
• 1946-1953: Carter serves in a Navy nuclear submarine program, attaining rank of lieutenant commander.
• Summer 1953: Carter resigns from the Navy, returns to Plains after father’s death.
• 1953-1971: Carter helps run the family peanut farm and warehouse business.
• 1963-1966: Carter serves in the Georgia state Senate.
• 1966: Carter tries unsuccessfully for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
• November 1970: Carter is elected governor of Georgia. Serves 1971-75.
• December 12, 1974: Carter announces a presidential bid. Atlanta newspaper answers with headline: “Jimmy Who?”
• January 1976: Carter leads the Democratic field in Iowa, a huge campaign boost that also helps to establish Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus.
• July 1976: Carter accepts the Democratic nomination and announces Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota as running mate.
• November 1976: Carter defeats President Gerald R Ford, winning 51 per cent of the vote and 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 240.
• January 1977: Carter is sworn in as the 39th president of the United States. On his first full day in office, he pardons most Vietnam-era draft evaders.
• September 1977: US and Panama sign treaties to return the Panama Canal back to Panama in 1999. Senate narrowly ratifies them in 1978.
• September 1978: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Carter sign Camp David accords, which lead to a peace deal between Egypt and Israel the following year.
• June 15-18, 1979: Carter attends a summit with Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev in Vienna that leads to the signing of the SALT II treaty.
• November 1979: Iranian militants storm the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 hostages. All survive and are freed minutes after Carter leaves office in January 1981.
• April 1980: The Mariel boatlift begins, sending tens of thousands of Cubans to the US. Many are criminals and psychiatric patients set free by Cuban leader Fidel Castro, creating a major foreign policy crisis.
• April 1980: An attempt by the US to free hostages fails when a helicopter crashes into a transport plane in Iran, killing eight servicemen.
• November 4, 1980: Carter is denied a second term by Ronald Reagan, who wins 51.6 per cent of the popular vote to 41.7 per cent for Carter and 6.7 per cent to independent John Anderson.
• 1982: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter co-found The Carter Center in Atlanta, whose mission is to resolve conflicts, protect human rights and prevent disease around the world.
• September 1984: The Carters spend a week building Habitat for Humanity houses, launching what becomes the annual Carter Work Project.
• October 1986: A dedication is held for The Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta. The centre includes the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and Carter Center offices.
• 1989: Carter leads the Carter Center’s first election monitoring mission, declaring Panamanian General Manuel Noriega’s election fraudulent.
• May 1992: Carter meets with Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev at the Carter Center to discuss forming the Gorbachev Foundation.
• June 1994: Carter plays a key role in North Korea nuclear disarmament talks.
• September 1994: Carter leads a delegation to Haiti, arranging terms to avoid a US invasion and return President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.
• December 1994: Carter negotiates tentative ceasefire in Bosnia.
• March 1995: Carter mediates ceasefire in Sudan’s war with southern rebels.
• September 1995: Carter travels to Africa to advance the peace process in more troubled areas.
• December 1998: Carter receives UN Human Rights Prize on 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• August 1999: President Bill Clinton awards Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• September 2001: Carter joins former Presidents Ford, Bush and Clinton at a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington after September 11 attacks.
• April 2002: Carter’s book An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood chosen as finalist for Pulitzer Prize in biography.
• May 2002: Carter visits Cuba and addresses the communist nation on television. He is the highest-ranking American to visit in decades.
• December 10, 2002: Carter is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.
• July 2007: Carter joins The Elders, a group of international leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela to focus on global issues.
• Spring 2008: Carter remains officially neutral as Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton battle each other for the Democratic presidential nomination.
• April 2008: Carter stirs controversy by meeting with the Islamic militant group Hamas.
• August 2010: Carter travels to North Korea as the Carter Center negotiates the release of an imprisoned American teacher.
• August 2013: Carter joins President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton at the 50th anniversary of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech and the March on Washington.
• October 1, 2014: Carter celebrates his 90th birthday.
• December 2014: Carter is nominated for a Grammy in the best spoken word album category, for his book A Call To Action.
• May 2015: Carter returns early from an election observation visit in Guyana – the Carter Center’s 100th – after feeling unwell.
• August 2015: Carter has a small cancerous mass removed from his liver. He plans to receive treatment at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta.
• August 2015: Carter announces that his grandson Jason Carter will chair the Carter Center governing board.
• March 6, 2016: Carter says an experimental drug has eliminated any sign of his cancer, and that he needs no further treatment.
• May 25, 2016: Carter steps back from a “front-line” role with The Elders to become an emeritus member.
• July 2016: Carter is treated for dehydration during a Habitat for Humanity build in Canada.
• Spring 2018: Carter publishes Faith: A Journey for All, the last of 32 books.
• March 22, 2019: Carter becomes the longest-lived US president, surpassing President George HW Bush, who died in 2018.
• September 18, 2019: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter deliver their final in-person annual report at the Carter Center.
• October 2019: At 95, still recovering from a fall, Carter joins the Work Project with Habitat for Humanity in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s the last time he works personally on the annual project.
• Fall 2019-early 2020: Democratic presidential hopefuls visit, publicly embracing Carter as a party elder, a first for his post-presidency.
• November 2020: The Carter Center monitors an audit of presidential election results in the state of Georgia, marking a new era of democracy advocacy within the US.
• January 20, 2021: The Carters miss President Joe Biden’s swearing-in, the first presidential inauguration they don’t attend since Carter’s own ceremony in 1977. The Bidens later visit the Carters in Plains on April 29.
• February 19, 2023: Carter enters home hospice care after a series of short hospital stays.
• July 7, 2023: The Carters celebrate their 77th and final wedding anniversary.
• November 19, 2023: Rosalynn Carter dies at home, two days after the family announced that she had joined the former president in receiving hospice care.
• October 1, 2024: Carter becomes the first former US president to reach 100 years of age, celebrating at home with extended family and close friends.
• October 16, 2024: Carter casts a Georgia mail ballot for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, having told his family he wanted to live long enough to vote for her. It marks his 21st presidential election as a voter.
• December 29, 2024: Carter dies at home.