Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who as US president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt has died, according to US media. He was 100.

A Democrat, he served as president from January 1977 to January 1981 after defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 US election. Carter was swept from office four years later in an electoral landslide as voters embraced Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor.

Carter lived longer after his term in office than any other US president. Along the way, he earned a reputation as a better former president than he was a president - a status he readily acknowledged.