There is a small community of Mongolians in Japan, representing a minor portion of emigration from Mongolia. As of December 2023, there were 19,490 registered Mongolian citizens residing in Japan, according to the Immigration Services Agency, up from 2,545 in 2003.^[2]

Students

International students form a large proportion of the registered population of Mongolians in Japan.^[3] The earliest Mongol exchange students, all three of them women, came to Japan in 1906, when Mongolia was still ruled by the Qing Dynasty.^[4] Japan was also a popular destination for students from Mengjiang (in today's Inner Mongolia) in the late 1930s and early 1940s; among them were several who would go on to become famous scholars, such as Chinggeltei.^[5][6] Japan and the Mongolian People's Republic officially agreed to send exchange students to each other in 1974; the first Mongolian student to arrive under the agreement came in 1976. As of May 2006^[update], 1,006 Mongolian students were studying in Japanese institutions of higher education.^[3]

Aside from Mongolian citizens, there were also estimated to be roughly 4,000 members of the Mongolian minority of China residing in Japan as of 2005^[update]. Like migrants from Mongolia proper, they also came mostly on student visas, beginning in the 1990s; they were sponsored by professors of Mongolian studies at Japanese universities. They are a close-knit community; they reside mostly in the Nerima and Sugamo areas of Tokyo and in many cases the same apartment has been occupied serially by successive migrants for more than a decade, with each passing the lease on to another migrant before leaving the country or moving on to different accommodation.^[7]

Sumo wrestlers

Starting in 1991, Mongolians began to become especially prominent in sumo; as of 2005^[update], Mongolians composed roughly 5% of all ranked sumo wrestlers, making them more than 60% (37 out of 61) of non-Japanese rikishi in Japan.^[8][9] In a 2009 survey conducted by a Japanese statistical agency, of the four sumo wrestlers named as most famous by Japanese people, three were Mongolian.^[10]

Notable people

• Asashōryū Akinori, originally Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj, sumo wrestler^[11]
• Hakuhō Shō, originally Mönkhbatyn Davaajargal, sumo wrestler^[12]
• Kyokutenhō Masaru, originally Tsebeknyam Nyamjyab, sumo wrestler^[13]
• Kyokutenzan Takeshi, originally Enkhbat Batmunkh, sumo wrestler^[14][15]
• Harumafuji Kōhei, originally Davaanyamyn Byambadorj, sumo wrestler^[16]