List of Asian Nobel laureates

The Nobel Prize is an annual, international prize first awarded in 1901 for achievements in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. An associated prize in Economics has been awarded since 1969.^[1] Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 800 individuals.^[2]

Asians have been the recipients of all six award categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economics. The first Asian recipient, Rabindranath Tagore, was awarded the Literature Prize in 1913. In 1930, C. V. Raman became the first Asian recipient of a Nobel Prize in one of the sciences. The most Nobel Prizes awarded to Asians in a single year was in 2014, when five Asians became laureates. The most recent Asian laureates, South Korean writer Han Kang, Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, and Turkish-American economist Daron Acemoglu were awarded their prizes in 2024.

To date (2024), there have been Sixty-three Asian winners of the Nobel Prize, including thirty Japanese, twelve Israeli, nine Indian (not including non-Indian Laureates born in India) and eight Chinese (not including non-Chinese Laureates born in China). The list does not include Russians.

Physics

As of 2021, there are 21 Asians or Asian Americans who have won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Japanese comprise the majority, with 12 laureates.

Year	Laureate	Country at the time of the award	Category	Comment
1930	Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman	British India	Physics	First Asian and Indian Nobel laureate in Science
1949	Hideki Yukawa	Japan	Physics	First Japanese Nobel laureate
1957	Chen Ning Yang	China	Physics	First Chinese Nobel laureate
1957	Tsung-Dao Lee	China	Physics	First Chinese Nobel laureate
1965	Shin'ichiro Tomonaga	Japan	Physics
1973	Leo Esaki	Japan	Physics
1976	Samuel C. C. Ting	United States	Physics	Dual-citizen of United States and Republic of China
1979	Abdus Salam	Pakistan	Physics	First Pakistani Nobel laureate
1983	Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar	United States	Physics	Born in India
1997	Steven Chu	United States	Physics	Born in United States
1998	Daniel C. Tsui	United States	Physics	Born in China
2002	Masatoshi Koshiba	Japan	Physics
2008	Yoichiro Nambu	United States	Physics	Born in Japan
2008	Makoto Kobayashi	Japan	Physics
2008	Toshihide Maskawa	Japan	Physics
2009	Charles K. Kao	United Kingdom and United States,	Physics	First Hong Kong citizenship Nobel laureate
2014	Isamu Akasaki	Japan	Physics
2014	Hiroshi Amano	Japan	Physics
2014	Shuji Nakamura	United States	Physics	Born in Japan
2015	Takaaki Kajita	Japan	Physics
2021	Syukuro Manabe	United States	Physics	Born in Japan

Chemistry

As of 2019, there are 19 Asians or Asian Americans who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with the Japanese comprising the most with 8 laureates.

Year	Laureate	Country at the time of the award	Category	Comment
1981	Kenichi Fukui	Japan	Chemistry	First Asian and Japanese Nobel laureate in Chemistry
1986	Yuan T. Lee	Taiwan and United States	Chemistry	First Taiwanese Nobel laureate
1987	Charles J. Pedersen	United States	Chemistry	Japanese mother; born in Korea
2000	Hideki Shirakawa	Japan	Chemistry
2001	Ryōji Noyori	Japan	Chemistry
2002	Koichi Tanaka	Japan	Chemistry
2004	Aaron Ciechanover	Israel	Chemistry
2004	Avram Hershko	Israel	Chemistry
2008	Osamu Shimomura	Japan	Chemistry
2008	Roger Y. Tsien	United States	Chemistry	Born in United States
2009	Venki Ramakrishnan	United Kingdom and United States	Chemistry	Born in India
2009	Ada Yonath	Israel	Chemistry
2010	Ei-ichi Negishi	Japan	Chemistry
2010	Akira Suzuki	Japan	Chemistry
2011	Dan Shechtman	Israel	Chemistry
2013	Arieh Warshel	Israel and United States	Chemistry
2013	Michael Levitt	Israel, United Kingdom and United States	Chemistry
2015	Aziz Sancar	Turkey and United States	Chemistry	First Turkish Nobel laureate in science
2019	Akira Yoshino	Japan	Chemistry

Physiology or Medicine

As of 2018, there are 7 Asians who won Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, with the Japanese comprising the most with 5 laureates.

Year	Laureate	Country at the time of the award	Category	Comment
1968	Har Gobind Khorana	United States	Physiology or Medicine	First Asian and Indian Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. Born in India
1987	Susumu Tonegawa	Japan	Physiology or Medicine	First Japanese Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine
2012	Shinya Yamanaka	Japan	Physiology or Medicine	First Nobel Medicine Laureate to achieve rewarded results in Asia
2015	Satoshi Ōmura	Japan	Physiology or Medicine
2015	Tu Youyou	China	Physiology or Medicine	First Chinese woman Nobel laureate
2016	Yoshinori Ohsumi	Japan	Physiology or Medicine
2018	Tasuku Honjo	Japan	Physiology or Medicine

Literature

As of 2024, there are 9 Asians who won Nobel Prize in Literature, with the Japanese comprising the most with 3 laureates.

Year	Laureate	Country at the time of the award	Category	Comment
1913	Rabindranath Tagore	British India	Literature	First Asian and Indian Nobel laureate
1968	Yasunari Kawabata	Japan	Literature
1994	Kenzaburō Ōe	Japan	Literature
2000	Gao Xingjian	France	Literature	Born in China
2001	V. S. Naipaul	United Kingdom	Literature	Indian origin. Born in Trinidad and Tobago.
2006	Orhan Pamuk	Turkey	Literature	First Turkish Nobel laureate
2012	Mo Yan	China	Literature
2017	Kazuo Ishiguro	United Kingdom	Literature	Born in Japan
2024	Han Kang	South Korea	Literature	First Asian female Nobel laureate in Literature

Peace

As of 2023, there are 22 Asians who won Nobel Prize in Peace, with the Israeli and Indian comprising the most with 3 laureates.

Year	Laureate	Country at the time of the award	Category	Comment
1973	Lê Đức Thọ (declined award)	North Vietnam	Peace	First Asian and Vietnamese Nobel laureate in Peace
1974	Eisaku Satō	Japan	Peace
1978	Menachem Begin	Israel	Peace
1979	Mother Teresa	India	Peace	First Asian woman Nobel laureate
1989	Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama	India, China, and Tibet	Peace	First Tibetan Nobel laureate
1991	Aung San Suu Kyi	Burma	Peace	First Myanmar Nobel laureate
1994	Yasser Arafat	Palestine	Peace	First Palestinian Arab in Nobel laureate
1994	Shimon Peres	Israel	Peace
1994	Yitzhak Rabin	Israel	Peace
1996	Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo	Timor-Leste	Peace	First Timorese Nobel laureate
1996	José Ramos-Horta	Timor-Leste	Peace	First Timorese Nobel laureate
2000	Kim Dae-jung	South Korea	Peace	First Korean Nobel laureate
2003	Shirin Ebadi	Iran	Peace	First Iranian Nobel laureate
2006	Muhammad Yunus	Bangladesh	Peace	First Bangladeshi Nobel laureate in Peace
2010	Liu Xiaobo	China	Peace	First Asian Nobel laureate in prison
2011	Tawakkul Karman	Yemen	Peace	First Arab Woman and First Yemeni Nobel laureate
2014	Kailash Satyarthi	India	Peace
2014	Malala Yousafzai	Pakistan	Peace	First Pakistani Woman Nobel laureate and youngest Nobel laureate
2018	Nadia Murad	Iraq	Peace	First Iraqi Nobel laureate
2021	Maria Ressa	Philippines	Peace	First Filipino Nobel laureate
2023	Narges Mohammadi	Iran	Peace	Second Iranian Nobel laureate and awarded while in prison
2024	Nihon Hidankyo	Japan	Peace

Economics

As of 2019, four Asians have won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Year	Laureate	Country at the time of the award	Category	Comment
1998	Amartya Sen	India	Economics	First Asian and Indian Nobel laureate in Economics.
2002	Daniel Kahneman	Israel and United States	Economics
2005	Robert Aumann	Israel and United States	Economics
2019	Abhijit Banerjee	United States	Economics	Born in India^[3]
2024	Daron Acemoglu	Turkey United States	Economics

Non-Asian born Laureates of Asian descent

Non-Asian Laureates born in Asia

References

^ "Nobel Prize" (2007), in Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed 14 November 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
An additional award, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968 by the Bank of Sweden and was first awarded in 1969
^ "All Nobel Laureates". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2010-03-01.
^ Hannon, Dominic Chopping and Paul. "Nobel Prize in Economics Awarded for Work Alleviating Poverty". WSJ. Retrieved 14 October 2019.

[Britannica1-1] "Nobel Prize" (2007), in Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed 14 November 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
An additional award, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968 by the Bank of Sweden and was first awarded in 1969

[2] "All Nobel Laureates". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2010-03-01.

[3] Hannon, Dominic Chopping and Paul. "Nobel Prize in Economics Awarded for Work Alleviating Poverty". WSJ. Retrieved 14 October 2019.

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