|About 130 million|
|Regions with significant populations|
|Japan 127 million|
||This article contains Japanese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji and kana.|
The Japanese people (日本人 Nihonjin, Nipponjin ) are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries are referred to as nikkeijin (日系人). The term "Japanese people" may also be used in some contexts to refer to a locus of ethnic groups including the Yamato people, Ainu people, and Ryukyuans.
The Japanese language is a Japonic language that is sometimes treated as a language isolate; it is also related to the Okinawan language (Ryukyuan), and both are suggested to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. The Japanese language has a tripartite writing system using Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Domestic Japanese people use primarily Japanese for daily interaction. The adult literacy rate in Japan exceeds 99%.
Japanese religion has traditionally been syncretic in nature, combining elements of Buddhism and Shinto. Shinto, a polytheistic religion with no book of religious canon, is Japan's native religion. Shinto was one of the traditional grounds for the right to the throne of the Japanese imperial family, and was codified as the state religion in 1868 (State Shinto was abolished by the American occupation in 1945). Mahayana Buddhism came to Japan in the sixth century and evolved into many different sects. Today the largest form of Buddhism among Japanese people is the Jodo Shinshu sect founded by Shinran.
Most Japanese people (84% to 96%) profess to believe in both Shinto and Buddhism. The Japanese people's religious concerns are mostly directed towards mythology, traditions, and neighborhood activities rather than as the single source of moral guidelines for one's life.
Certain genres of writing originated in and are often associated with Japanese society. These include the haiku, tanka, and I Novel, although modern writers generally avoid these writing styles. Historically, many works have sought to capture or codify traditional Japanese cultural values and aesthetics. Some of the most famous of these include Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji (1021), about Heian court culture; Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings (1645), concerning military strategy; Matsuo Bashō's Oku no Hosomichi (1691), a travelogue; and Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's essay "In Praise of Shadows" (1933), which contrasts Eastern and Western cultures.
Following the opening of Japan to the West in 1854, some works of this style were written in English by natives of Japan; they include Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Nitobe Inazo (1900), concerning samurai ethics, and The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo (1906), which deals with the philosophical implications of the Japanese tea ceremony. Western observers have often attempted to evaluate Japanese society as well, to varying degrees of success; one of the most well-known and controversial works resulting from this is Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946).
Twentieth-century Japanese writers recorded changes in Japanese society through their works. Some of the most notable authors included Natsume Sōseki, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Osamu Dazai, Yasunari Kawabata, Fumiko Enchi, Yukio Mishima, and Ryotaro Shiba. In contemporary Japan, popular authors such as Ryu Murakami, Haruki Murakami, and Banana Yoshimoto are highly regarded.
Decorative arts in Japan date back to prehistoric times. Jōmon pottery includes examples with elaborate ornamentation. In the Yayoi period, artisans produced mirrors, spears, and ceremonial bells known as dōtaku. Later burial mounds, or kofun, preserve characteristic clay haniwa, as well as wall paintings.
Beginning in the Nara period, painting, calligraphy, and sculpture flourished under strong Confucian and Buddhist influences from Korea and China. Among the architectural achievements of this period are the Hōryū-ji and the Yakushi-ji, two Buddhist temples in Nara Prefecture. After the cessation of official relations with the Tang dynasty in the ninth century, Japanese art and architecture gradually became less influenced by China. Extravagant art and clothing was commissioned by nobles to decorate their court life, and although the aristocracy was quite limited in size and power, many of these pieces are still extant. After the Todai-ji was attacked and burned during the Gempei War, a special office of restoration was founded, and the Todai-ji became an important artistic center. The leading masters of the time were Unkei and Kaikei.
Painting advanced in the Muromachi period in the form of ink and wash painting under the influence of Zen Buddhism as practiced by such masters as Sesshū Tōyō. Zen Buddhist tenets were also elaborated into the tea ceremony during the Sengoku period. During the Edo period, the polychrome painting screens of the Kano school were made influential thanks to their powerful patrons (including the Tokugawas). Popular artists created ukiyo-e, woodblock prints for sale to commoners in the flourishing cities. Pottery such as Imari ware was highly valued as far away as Europe.
In theater, Noh is a traditional, spare dramatic form that developed in tandem with kyogen farce. In stark contrast to the restrained refinement of noh, kabuki, an "explosion of color," uses every possible stage trick for dramatic effect. Plays include sensational events such as suicides, and many such works were performed in both kabuki and bunraku puppet theaters.
Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has absorbed elements of Western culture. Its modern decorative, practical and performing arts works span a spectrum ranging from the traditions of Japan to purely Western modes. Products of popular culture, including J-pop, manga, and anime have found audiences around the world.
A recent study by Michael F. Hammer has shown considerable genetic similarity between the Japanese and several other Asian populations. The study, along with several others, claims that Y-chromosome patrilines crossed from the Asian mainland into the Japanese Archipelago, where they continue to make up a large proportion of the Japanese male lineage. These patrilines seem to have undergone extensive genetic admixture with the Jōmon period populations previously established in Japan.
Another recent study of the origins of Japanese people is based on the "dual structure model" proposed by Hanihara in 1991. He concludes that modern Japanese lineages consist of the original Jōmon people, who moved into the Japanese Archipelago during Paleolithic times from their homeland in southeast Asia, and immigrants from the Yayoi period. In recent decades, it has been proposed that the Japanese people are related to the Yi, Hani and Dai people. These proposals are based on folk customs as well as genetic evidence.
A second wave of immigrants from southeast Asia is also believed to have migrated into northeastern Asia. Following a population expansion in Neolithic times, these newcomers then found their way to the Japanese archipelago sometime during the Yayoi period. As a result, miscegenation was rife in the island regions of Kyūshū, Shikoku and Honshū, but did not prevail in the outlying islands of Okinawa and Hokkaido. Here, the Ryukyuan and Ainu people continued to dominate, as suggested by studies of human bone and teeth development and comparitive analyses of mitochondrial DNA between Jōmon people and medieval Ainu.
Masatoshi Nei opposed the "dual structure model" and alleged that the genetic distance data shows the origin of Japanese was in northeast Asia, moving to Japan perhaps more than thirty thousand years ago.
The study on the population change in the ancient period was also discussed. The estimated number of people in the late Jōmon period numbered about one hundred thousand, compared to that of the Nara period which had a population of about three million. Taking the growth rates of hunting and agricultural societies into account, it is calculated that about one and half million immigrants moved to Japan in the period. This figure seems to be overestimated and is being recalculated today.
Archaeological evidence indicates that Stone Age people lived in the Japanese Archipelago during the Paleolithic period between 39,000 and 21,000 years ago. Japan was then connected to mainland Asia by at least one land bridge, and nomadic hunter-gatherers crossed to Japan from East Asia, Siberia, and possibly Kamchatka. Flint tools and bony implements of this era have been excavated in Japan.
The world's oldest known pottery was developed by the Jōmon people in the Upper Paleolithic period, 14th millennium BCE. The name, "Jōmon" (縄文 Jōmon), which means "cord-impressed pattern", comes from the characteristic markings found on the pottery. The Jōmon people were Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, though at least one middle to late Jōmon site (Minami Mosote (南溝手), ca. 1200-1000 BCE) had a primitive rice-growing agriculture. They relied primarily on fish for protein. It is believed that the Jōmon had very likely migrated from North Asia or Central Asia and became the Ainu of today. Research suggests that the Ainu retain a certain degree of uniqueness in their genetic make-up, while having some affinities with different regional populations in Japan as well as the Nivkhs of the Russian Far East. Based on more than a dozen genetic markers on a variety of chromosomes and from archaeological data showing habitation of the Japanese Archipelago dating back 30,000 years, it is argued that the Jōmon actually came from northeastern Asia and settled on the islands far earlier than some have proposed.
Around 400-300 BC, the Yayoi people began to enter the Japanese islands, intermingling with the Jōmon. The Yayoi brought wet-rice farming and advanced bronze and iron technology to Japan. Although the islands were already abundant with resources for hunting and dry-rice farming, Yayoi farmers created more productive wet-rice paddy field systems. This allowed the communities to support larger populations and spread over time, in turn becoming the basis for more advanced institutions and heralding the new civilization of the succeeding Kofun Period.
Currently, the most well-regarded theory is that present-day Japanese are descendants of both the indigenous Jōmon people and the immigrant Yayoi people. The origins of the Jōmon and Yayoi peoples have often been a subject of dispute, but it is now generally accepted that the Jōmon people were similar to the modern Ainu of northern Japan; the path of their migration may have been from the southwest of China to Mongolia to today's southeastern Russia and then to northeastern Japan, and they probably have lived in Japan since the time of the last glacial age. They brought with them the origins of Japanese culture and religion. Han Chinese and ethnic Korean groups are thought to be the origin of the Yayoi group which entered Japan from the southwest, bringing a more advanced civilization than the native Jōmon people. However, a clear consensus has not been reached.
During the Japanese colonial period of 1867 to 1945, the phrase "Japanese people" was used to refer not only to residents of the Japanese archipelago, but also to people from occupied territories who held Japanese citizenship, such as Taiwanese people and Korean people. The official term used to refer to ethnic Japanese during this period was "inland people" (内地人 naichijin ). Such linguistic distinctions facilitated forced assimilation of colonized ethnic identities into a single Imperial Japanese identity.
After World War II, many Nivkh people and Orok people from southern Sakhalin who held Japanese citizenship were forced to repatriate to Hokkaidō by the Soviet Union. However, many Sakhalin Koreans who had held Japanese citizenship until the end of the war were left stateless by the Soviet occupation.
The term nikkeijin (日系人) is used to refer to Japanese people who either emigrated from Japan or are descendants of a person who emigrated from Japan. The usage of this term excludes Japanese citizens who are living abroad, but includes all descendants of nikkeijin who lack Japanese citizenship regardless of their place of birth.
Emigration from Japan was recorded as early as the 12th century to the Philippines, but did not become a mass phenomenon until the Meiji Era, when Japanese began to go to the United States, Canada, Peru, Brazil and Argentina. There was also significant emigration to the territories of the Empire of Japan during the colonial period; however, most such emigrants repatriated to Japan after the end of World War II in Asia.
According to the Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad, there are about 2.5 million nikkeijin living in their adopted countries. The largest of these foreign communities are in the Brazilian states of São Paulo and Paraná. There are also significant cohesive Japanese communities in the Philippines, Peru, Argentina and in the American states of Hawaiʻi, California and Washington. Separately, the number of Japanese citizens living abroad is over one million according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There is also a small group of Japanese descendants living in Caribbean countries such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic where hundreds of these immigrants were brought in by Rafael L. Trujillo in the 1930s.