Since 1949, there have been 32 Japanese laureates of the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901. An associated prize, thus far, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, also sometimes known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, has yet to be awarded to a Japanese national.

The Nobel Prizes in the above specific sciences disciplines and the Prize in Economics, which is commonly identified with them, are widely regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in those fields. Of Japanese winners, twelve have been physicists, nine chemists, three for literature, six for physiology or medicine, and two for efforts towards peace.

Summary + Number of Nobel laureates by category Category Japanese citizens/ organizations Others born as Japanese citizens Total Others born in Japanese colonies Remarks Physics 9 3 12 - Yoichiro Nambu, Shuji Nakamura, and Syukuro Manabe became American citizens. Chemistry 9 - 9 2 Charles J. Pedersen has half Japanese ancestry (listed under the Diaspora), but Yuan T. Lee is not. Physiology or Medicine 6 - 6 - Literature 2 1 3 - Kazuo Ishiguro became a British citizen in 1983. Peace 2 - 2 - Total 28 4 32 2 Japanese media usually count 31 laureates (excluding Kazuo Ishiguro).

Laureates Year Portrait Laureate(birth/death) Field Rational Undergraduate alma mater Citizens1949Hideki Yukawa(1907–1981)Physics"for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces."The Nobel Prize in Physics 1949 nobelprize.orgKyotoU1965Shin'ichirō Tomonaga(1906–1979)Physics"for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles."The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965 nobelprize.org (jointly with American theoretical physicists Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman)KyotoU1968Yasunari Kawabata(1899–1972)Literature"for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind."The Nobel Prize in Literature 1968 nobelprize.orgUTokyo1973Leo Esaki(1925–)Physics"for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively."The Nobel Prize in Physics 1973 nobelprize.org (jointly with Norwegian-American physicist Ivar Giaever and shared with Welsh theoretical physicist Brian David Josephson)UTokyo1974Eisaku Satō(1901–1975)Peace"for his contribution to stabilize conditions in the Pacific rim area and for signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."The Nobel Peace Prize 1974 nobelprize.org (shared with Irish politician Seán MacBride)UTokyo1981Kenichi Fukui(1918–1998)Chemistry"for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions."The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1981 nobelprize.org (jointly with Polish-American theoretical chemist Roald Hoffmann)KyotoU1987Susumu Tonegawa(1939–2026)Physiology or Medicine"for his discovery of the genetic principle for generation of antibody diversity."The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1987 nobelprize.orgKyotoU1994Kenzaburō Ōe(1935–2023)Literature"who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today."The Nobel Prize in Literature 1994 nobelprize.orgUTokyo2000Hideki Shirakawa(1936–2026)Chemistry"for their discovery and development of conductive polymers."The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000 nobelprize.org (jointly with American chemist Alan MacDiarmid and physicist Alan J. Heeger)Tokyo Tech2001Ryōji Noyori(1938–)Chemistry"for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions."The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001 nobelprize.org (jointly with American chemist William S. Knowles and shared with American chemist K. Barry Sharpless)KyotoU2002Masatoshi Koshiba(1926–2020)Physics"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos."The Nobel Prize in Physics 2002 nobelprize.org (jointly with American chemist Raymond Davis Jr. and shared with Italian-American Riccardo Giacconi)UTokyoKoichi Tanaka(1959–)Chemistry"for the development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules... [and] for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules."The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2002 nobelprize.org (jointly with American analytical chemist John B. Fenn and Swiss chemist Kurt Wüthrich)Tohokudai2008Makoto Kobayashi(1944–)Physics"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."The Nobel Prize in Physics 2008 nobelprize.org (shared with Japanese-American physicist Yoichiro Nambu)NagoyaUToshihide Maskawa(1940–2021)NagoyaUOsamu Shimomura(1928–2018)Chemistry"for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP."The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008 nobelprize.org (jointly with American neurobiologist Martin Chalfie and biochemist Roger Y. Tsien)Nagasaki2010Ei-ichi Negishi(1935–2021)Chemistry"for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis."The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2010 nobelprize.org (jointly with American chemist Richard F. Heck)UTokyoAkira Suzuki(1930–)Hokudai2012Shinya Yamanaka(1962–)Physiology or Medicine"for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent."The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 nobelprize.org (jointly with British developmental biologist John B. Gurdon)KobeU2014Isamu Akasaki(1929–2021)Physics"for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources."The Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 nobelprize.org (jointly with Japanese-born American Shuji Nakamura)KyotoUHiroshi Amano(1960–)NagoyaU2015Satoshi Ōmura(1935–)Physiology or Medicine"for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites."The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015 nobelprize.org (jointly with Irish-American parasitologist William C. Campbell and shared with Chinese pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou)NashidaiTakaaki Kajita(1959–)Physics"for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass."The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 nobelprize.org (jointly with Canadian astrophysicist Arthur B. McDonald)SaitamaU2016Yoshinori Ohsumi(1945–)Physiology or Medicine"for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy."The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016 nobelprize.org UTokyo2018Tasuku Honjo(1942–)Physiology or Medicine"for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation."The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018 nobelprize.org (jointly with American immunologist James P. Allison)KyotoU2019Akira Yoshino(1948–)Chemistry"for the development of lithium ion batteries."The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 nobelprize.org (jointly with American materials scientist John B. Goodenough and British-American chemist M. Stanley Whittingham)KyotoU2024Nihon HidankyoPeace"for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again."Press release - Nobel Peace Prize 2024 - NobelPrize.org2025Shimon Sakaguchi(1951–)Physiology or Medicine"for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance." (jointly with American immunologists Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell)KyotoUSusumu Kitagawa(1951–)Chemistry"for the development of metal-organic frameworkse." (jointly with American materials scientist Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi)KyotoU Diaspora1987 Charles J. Pedersen(1904–1989)Chemistry"for their development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity."The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1987 nobelprize.org (jointly with American chemist Donald J. Cram and French chemist Jean-Marie Lehn)UDayton2008Yoichiro Nambu(1921–2015)Physics"for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics." (jointly with Japanese physicists Toshihide Maskawa and Makoto Kobayashi)UTokyo2014Shuji Nakamura(1954–)Physics"for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources." (jointly with Japanese physicists Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano)TokushimaU2017Kazuo Ishiguro(1954–)Literature"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world."The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017 nobelprize.orgKent2021Syukuro Manabe(1931–)Physics"for the physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming."The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 nobelprize.org (jointly with German climate modeller Klaus Hasselmann and shared with Italian theoretical physicist Giorgio Parisi)UTokyo

List by alma mater As of 2025, the list of Nobel Prize winners of Japanese nationality and Japanese ancestry by undergraduate alma mater. LogoInstitutionCountryNumber of laureates Kyoto University 10 (1949, 1995, 1981, 1987, 2001, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2025) Hideki Yukawa, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Kenichi Fukui, Susumu Tonegawa, Ryōji Noyori, Isamu Akasaki, Tasuku Honjo, Akira Yoshino, Shimon Sakaguchi, Susumu Kitagawa The University of Tokyo 9 (1968, 1973, 1974, 1994, 2002, 2008, 2010, 2016, 2021) Yasunari Kawabata, Leo Esaki, Eisaku Satō, Kenzaburō Ōe, Masatoshi Koshiba, Yoichiro Nambu, Ei-ichi Negishi, Yoshinori Ohsumi, Syukuro Manabe Nagoya University 3 (2008, 2014) Makoto Kobayashi, Toshihide Maskawa, Hiroshi Amano Hokkaido University 1 (2010) Akira Suzuki Kobe University 1 (2012) Shinya Yamanaka Nagasaki University 1 (2008) Osamu Shimomura Saitama University 1 (2015) Takaaki Kajita Tohoku University 1 (2002) Koichi Tanaka Tokyo Institute of Technology 1 (2000) Hideki Shirakawa Tokushima University 1 (2014) Shuji Nakamura University of Dayton 1 (1987) Charles J. Pedersen University of Kent 1 (2017) Kazuo Ishiguro University of Yamanashi 1 (2015) Satoshi Omura Number of People by Degree Granting Institutions By degree (bachelor, master, doctorate) awarded, the number of Japanese alumni awarded by each university is as follows (including those with Japanese nationality and those of Japanese origin; as of October 9, 2019): Kyoto University 12 The University of Tokyo 11 Nagoya University 5 Osaka University 2

Only one Japanese degree holder from the following universities has won the Nobel Prize: Hokkaido University, Kobe University, Nagasaki University, Osaka City University, Saitama University, Tohoku University, Tokushima University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo University of Science, University of East Anglia, University of California, San Diego, University of Kent, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, University of Yamanashi

Nominees