List of Asian Nobel laureates explained

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, Japanese scientist Syukuro Manabe and the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa was awarded their prizes in 2021.

To date (2023), there have been sixty Asian winners of the Nobel Prize, including twenty-nine 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		Physics	First Asian and Indian Nobel laureate in Science
1949	Hideki Yukawa		Physics	First Japanese Nobel laureate
1957	Chen Ning Yang		Physics	First Chinese Nobel laureate
1957	Tsung-Dao Lee		Physics	First Chinese Nobel laureate
1965	Shin'ichiro Tomonaga		Physics
1973	Leo Esaki			Physics
1976	Samuel C. C. Ting		Physics	Dual-citizen of and Republic of China
1979	Abdus Salam		Physics	First Pakistani Nobel laureate
1983	Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar		Physics	Born in
1997	Steven Chu		Physics	Born in United States
1998	Daniel C. Tsui		Physics	Born in China
2002	Masatoshi Koshiba		Physics
2008	Yoichiro Nambu		Physics	Born in
2008	Makoto Kobayashi		Physics
2008	Toshihide Maskawa		Physics
2009	Charles K. Kao	and,	Physics	First Hong Kong citizenship Nobel laureate
2014	Isamu Akasaki		Physics
2014	Hiroshi Amano		Physics
2014	Shuji Nakamura		Physics	Born in
2015	Takaaki Kajita		Physics
2021	Syukuro Manabe		Physics	Born in

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		Chemistry	First Asian and Japanese Nobel laureate in Chemistry
1986	Yuan T. Lee	and	Chemistry	First Taiwanese Nobel laureate
1987	Charles J. Pedersen		Chemistry	Japanese mother; born in Korea
2000	Hideki Shirakawa		Chemistry
2001	Ryōji Noyori		Chemistry
2002	Koichi Tanaka		Chemistry
2004	Aaron Ciechanover		Chemistry
2004	Avram Hershko		Chemistry
2008	Osamu Shimomura		Chemistry
2008	Roger Y. Tsien		Chemistry	Born in United States
2009	Venki Ramakrishnan	and	Chemistry	Born in India
2009	Ada Yonath		Chemistry
2010	Ei-ichi Negishi		Chemistry
2010	Akira Suzuki		Chemistry
2011	Dan Shechtman		Chemistry
2013	Arieh Warshel	and	Chemistry
2013	Michael Levitt	, and	Chemistry
2015	Aziz Sancar	and	Chemistry	First Turkish Nobel laureate in science
2019	Akira Yoshino		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	Category	Comment
1968	Har Gobind Khorana	Physiology or Medicine	First Asian and Indian Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. Born in India
1987	Susumu Tonegawa	Physiology or Medicine	First Japanese Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine
2012	Shinya Yamanaka	Physiology or Medicine	First Nobel Medicine Laureate to achieve rewarded results in Asia
2015	Satoshi Ōmura	Physiology or Medicine
2015	Tu Youyou	Physiology or Medicine	First Chinese woman Nobel laureate
2016	Yoshinori Ohsumi	Physiology or Medicine
2018	Tasuku Honjo	Physiology or Medicine

Literature

As of 2018, there are 8 Asians who won Nobel Prize in Literature, with the Japanese comprising the most with 3 laureates.

Year	Laureate	Category	Comment
1913	Rabindranath Tagore	Literature	First Asian and Indian Nobel laureate
1968	Yasunari Kawabata	Literature
1994	Kenzaburō Ōe	Literature
2000	Gao Xingjian	Literature	Born in China
2001	V. S. Naipaul	Literature	Indian origin. Born in Trinidad and Tobago.
2006	Orhan Pamuk	Literature	First Turkish Nobel laureate
2012	Mo Yan	Literature
2017	Kazuo Ishiguro	Literature	Born in

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)		Peace	First Asian and Vietnamese Nobel laureate in Peace
1974	Eisaku Satō			Peace
1978	Menachem Begin		Peace
1979	Mother Teresa		Peace	First Asian woman Nobel laureate
1989	Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama	,, and	Peace	First Tibetan Nobel laureate
1991	Aung San Suu Kyi	Burma	Peace	First Myanmar Nobel laureate
1994	Yasser Arafat		Peace	First Palestinian Arab in Nobel laureate
1994	Shimon Peres		Peace
1994	Yitzhak Rabin		Peace
1996	Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo		Peace	First Timorese Nobel laureate
1996	José Ramos-Horta		Peace	First Timorese Nobel laureate
2000	Kim Dae-jung		Peace	First Korean Nobel laureate
2003	Shirin Ebadi		Peace	First Iranian Nobel laureate
2006	Muhammad Yunus		Peace	First Bangladeshi Nobel laureate in Peace
2010	Liu Xiaobo		Peace	First Asian Nobel laureate in prison
2011	Tawakkul Karman		Peace	First Arab Woman and First Yemeni Nobel laureate
2014	Kailash Satyarthi		Peace
2014	Malala Yousafzai		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		Peace	Second Iranian Nobel laureate and awarded while in prison

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		Economics	First Asian and Indian Nobel laureate in Economics.
2002	Daniel Kahneman	and	Economics
2005	Robert Aumann	and	Economics
2019	Abhijit Banerjee		Economics	Born in India^[3]

Non-Asian born Laureates of Asian descent

See main article: article.

Non-Asian Laureates born in Asia