Engelbert Kaempfer (16 September 1651 – 2 November 1716) from Lemgo, was a German naturalist, physician, explorer, and writer known for his tour of Russia, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and Japan between 1683 and 1693.

Amoenitatum exoticarum, published in 1712, is important for its medical observations and the first extensive description of Japanese plants (Flora Japonica).

His History of Japan, published posthumously in 1727, was the chief source of Western knowledge about the country throughout the 18th and mid-19th centuries, when it was closed to foreigners.

His desire for foreign travel led him to become secretary to the second embassy of the Swedish ambassador Ludvig Fabritius, whom Charles XI sent through Russia to Persia in 1683.

[2] He reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad "in Shirvan" (now in Azerbaijan) after a voyage in the Caspian Sea.

[1] When after a stay of more than a year the Swedish embassy prepared to return to its homeland, Kaempfer joined the fleet of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the Persian Gulf as chief surgeon.

In spite of fever caught at Bandar Abbas, he saw something of Arabia (visiting Muscat in 1688) and many of the western coastlands of India.

When he visited Buddhist monks in Nagasaki in February 1691, he was the first western scholar to describe the tree Ginkgo biloba.

He argues that the Japanese have a separate ethnic origin from the Chinese and claims they descend directly from the builders of the Tower of Babel.

[7] During his stay in Japan, Kaempfer's tact, diplomacy and medical skill overcame the cultural reserve of the Japanese.

Kaempfer's works on Japan had a profound influence on European and German research on East Asia, which culminated in the studies by Philipp Franz von Siebold.

For upwards of a hundred years, when Japan was closed to foreigners, it was the chief source of information for the general reader.