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, 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.

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

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

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.

YearImageLaureateCountry at the time of the awardCategoryComment
1968 Har Gobind Khorana  United StatesPhysiology or MedicineFirst Asian and Indian Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. Born in India
1987 Susumu Tonegawa  JapanPhysiology or MedicineFirst Japanese Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine
2012 Shinya Yamanaka  JapanPhysiology or MedicineFirst Nobel Medicine Laureate to achieve rewarded results in Asia
2015 Satoshi Ōmura  JapanPhysiology or Medicine
2015 Tu Youyou  ChinaPhysiology or MedicineFirst Chinese woman Nobel laureate
2016 Yoshinori Ohsumi  JapanPhysiology or Medicine
2018 Tasuku Honjo  JapanPhysiology 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.

YearImageLaureateCountry at the time of the awardCategoryComment
1913 Rabindranath Tagore  British IndiaLiteratureFirst Asian and Indian Nobel laureate
1968 Yasunari Kawabata  JapanLiterature
1994 Kenzaburō Ōe  JapanLiterature
2000 Gao Xingjian  FranceLiteratureBorn in China
2001 V. S. Naipaul  United KingdomLiteratureIndian origin. Born in Trinidad and Tobago.
2006 Orhan Pamuk  TurkeyLiteratureFirst Turkish Nobel laureate
2012 Mo Yan  ChinaLiterature
2017 Kazuo Ishiguro  United KingdomLiteratureBorn in  Japan

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.

YearImageLaureateCountry at the time of the awardCategoryComment
1973 Lê Đức Thọ
(declined award)
 North VietnamPeaceFirst Asian and Vietnamese Nobel laureate in Peace
1974 Eisaku Satō  JapanPeace
1978 Menachem Begin  IsraelPeace
1979 Mother Teresa  IndiaPeaceFirst Asian woman Nobel laureate
1989 Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama  India,  China, and  TibetPeaceFirst Tibetan Nobel laureate
1991 Aung San Suu Kyi BurmaPeaceFirst Myanmar Nobel laureate
1994 Yasser Arafat  PalestinePeaceFirst Palestinian Arab in Nobel laureate
1994 Shimon Peres  IsraelPeace
1994 Yitzhak Rabin  IsraelPeace
1996 Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo  Timor-LestePeaceFirst Timorese Nobel laureate
1996 José Ramos-Horta  Timor-LestePeaceFirst Timorese Nobel laureate
2000 Kim Dae-jung  South KoreaPeaceFirst Korean Nobel laureate
2003 Shirin Ebadi  IranPeaceFirst Iranian Nobel laureate
2006 Muhammad Yunus  BangladeshPeaceFirst Bangladeshi Nobel laureate in Peace
2010Liu Xiaobo  ChinaPeaceFirst Asian Nobel laureate in prison
2011 Tawakkul Karman  YemenPeaceFirst Arab Woman and First Yemeni Nobel laureate
2014 Kailash Satyarthi  IndiaPeace
2014 Malala Yousafzai  PakistanPeaceFirst Pakistani Woman Nobel laureate and youngest Nobel laureate
2018 Nadia Murad  IraqPeaceFirst Iraqi Nobel laureate
2021 Maria Ressa  PhilippinesPeaceFirst Filipino Nobel laureate
2023 Narges Mohammadi  IranPeaceSecond Iranian Nobel laureate and awarded while in prison

Economics

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

YearImageLaureateCountry at the time of the awardCategoryComment
1998 Amartya Sen  IndiaEconomicsFirst Asian and Indian Nobel laureate in Economics.
2002 Daniel Kahneman  Israel and  United StatesEconomics
2005 Robert Aumann  Israel and  United StatesEconomics
2019 Abhijit Banerjee  United StatesEconomicsBorn in India; [3]

Non-Asian born Laureates of Asian descent

Non-Asian Laureates born in Asia

See also

References