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Demographics - Japanese Immigration to the Americas, Southeast Asia and Oceania, and Asian Continent: Prewar (1868-1941), Wartime (1941-1945), and Postwar (1945-1989)

  Prewar
(1868-1941)
  Wartime
(1941-1945)
  Postwar
(1945-1989)
Total
(1868-1989)
Latin America
Brazil 188,985   -   71,372 260,357
Peru 33,070   -   2,615 35,685
Mexico 14,667   -   671 15,338
Argentina 5,398   -   1,206 6,604
Paraguay 709   -   9,612 10,321
Bolivia 222   -   6,357 6,579
Dominican Republic -   -   1,390 1,390
Cuba 616   -   - 616
Chile 538   -   14 552
Panama 456   -   - 456
Others 1,305   -   168 1,473
Total 245,966   -   93,405 339,371
             
North America
United States 338,459   -   134,842 473,301
Canada 35,777   -   11,226 47,003
Total 374,236   -   146,068 520,304
             
Southeast Asia & Oceania
Philippines/Guam 53,115   -   - 53,115
Malay/Singapore 11,809   -   - 11,809
Dutch East Indies 7,095   -   - 7,095
New Caledonia 5,074   -   - 5,074
Hong Kong/Macao 3,815   -   - 3,815
Australia 3,773   -   1,525 5,298
New Zealand 1,046   -   - 1,046
Northern Borneo 2,829   -   - 2,829
Others 1,880   -   - 1,880
Total 90,436   -   1,525 91,961
             
Asian Continent
China 95,508 * (1938) -   - 95,508
China     497,000 (1945)1 - 497,000
Siberia/USSR 56,821   -   - 56,821
India 1,885   -   - 1,885
             
Europe 2,807 * (1938) -   - 2,807
             
Africa 213 * (1938) -   - 213
             
Japanese Colonies
Korea     753,000 * (1942)    
South Sakhalin   398,838 * (1942)    
Taiwan     385,000 * (1942)    
Kangtung     222,652 * (1942)    
Total     1,759,490      
             
Areas under Japanese Rule
Manchuria     874,348 * (1942)    
Emigrants to "Manchukuo"   270,007 (1932--1945)2  
Micronesia     96,000 * (1942)    
Total     970,348      

Sources: Mark R. Peattie, Nan'yo: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia, 1885-1945 (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1988), 334, n.6. Wakatsuki Yasuo, Sengo hikiage no kiroku (Tokyo: Jiji Tsoshinsha, 1995), 16-17, 85. JICA, Kaigai ijo tokei (Tokyo, 1994), 122, 126-27.

Notes: Prewar emigration figures were compiled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Colonial Ministry, based on the numbers of passports issued to legally sanctioned "emigrants." It should be emphasized that there were many people who went to the Americas, as well as other destinations, with other types of passports, or even without one. These people were not accounted for in the statistics reported here. Therefore, the actual number of emigrants is much higher than the figures shown here.

Postwar emigration figures to Latin America are based on statistics collected by the Japan International Cooperation Agency - the semi-governmental agency that took charge of sending emigrants under the bilateral treaties with the host countries. North American figures were derived from the Foreign Ministry data based on the issuance of emigrant passports. It is more than likely that large numbers of Japanese were unaccounted for due to their passport status. For example, spouses of American, Canadian, or Australian citizens are not part of the statistics. Nor are students, holders of labor visas, and so on, many of whom remained in host societies.

Asterisk (*) indicates the number of Japanese living in a given locale, in the year designated in parenthesis. Because the Japanese government did not record the statistics of Japanese departing to its colonial possessions and controlled areas, the population of Japanese residents in these areas is given as a reference for rough comparison to actual emigration figures.

1. With Japan's invasion of China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 1937, tens of thousands of Japanese moved to newly occupied areas in the northern and coastal regions of China. The big jump in the number of Japanese residents in China from 1938 to 1945 underlined the rapid expansion of Japanese military personnel, followed by the influx of civilian emigrants - a pattern also common in other places of Japanese military deployment throughout Asia and the Pacific.

2. Manchuria had attracted a number of Japanese entrepreneurs and farmers since the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, which resulted in Japan's acquisition of the Southern Manchurian Railway and parts of Kangtung Province. "Manchukuo," established in 1932, was the destination of state-sponsored emigrants between 1932 and 1945. The figure, 270,007, refers to these colonists - the number included in the total of 874,348.

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