The Japanese diaspora, and its individual members known as nikkei (日系), nikkeijin (日系人). Nikkei are the Japanese emigrants from Japan and their descendants that reside in a foreign country. Emigration from Japan first happened and was recorded as early as the 12th century to the Philippines, but did not become a mass phenomenon until the Meiji period, when Japanese began to go to the Philippines, North America, and beginning in 1897 with 35 emigrants to Mexico; and later to Peru, beginning in 1899 with 790 emigrants. There was also significant emigration to the territories of the Empire of Japan during the colonial period; however, most emigrants repatriated to Japan after the end of World War II in Asia, the Surrender of Japan. According to the Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad, there are about 2.5 million nikkei living in their adopted countries. The largest of these foreign communities are in Brazil, the United States, the Philippines, China, Canada and Peru. Descendants of emigrants from the Meiji period still hold recognizable communities in those countries, forming separate ethnic groups from Japanese peoples in Japan.

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