Descendants of emigrants from the Meiji period still maintain recognizable communities in those countries, forming separate ethnic groups from Japanese people in Japan.

In this context emigration refers to permanent settlers, excluding transient Japanese abroad, although the term may not strictly relate to citizenship status.

The ancient Japanese pottery that was discovered there has proven that there was trading activity between Japan and Cebu Island Philippines going back to the 16th century.

A larger wave came in the 17th century, when red seal ships traded in Southeast Asia and Japanese Catholics fled from the religious persecution imposed by the shōguns and settled in the Philippines, among other destinations.

Many of them also intermarried with the local Filipina women (including those of pure or mixed Chinese and Spanish descent), thus forming the new Japanese-Mestizo community.

[29] In the 15th century AD, shimamono tea-jars were bought by the shōguns to Uji in Kyoto from the Philippines by merchants such as Luzon Sukezaemon which was used in the Japanese tea ceremony.

[33] This activity ended in the 1640s, when the Tokugawa shogunate imposed maritime restrictions which forbade Japanese from leaving the country and from returning if they were already abroad.

In 1885, the Meiji government began to turn to officially sponsored emigration programs to alleviate pressure from overpopulation and the effects of the Matsukata deflation in rural areas.

[47] There was also a significant level of emigration to the overseas territories of the Empire of Japan during the Japanese colonial period, including Korea,[49] Taiwan, Manchuria and Karafuto.

[57] Only a few remained overseas, often involuntarily, as in the case of orphans in China or prisoners of war captured by the Red Army and forced to work in Siberia.

[62] People from Japan began migrating to the U.S. and Canada in significant numbers following the political, cultural and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration.

Protests over the extreme hardships and broken government promises faced by the initial group of migrants set the stage for the end of state-supported labor emigration in Japan.

The majority of Japanese settled in Hawaii, where today a third of the state's population are of Japanese descent and the rest in the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska) and Southwestern United States (Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent parts of Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah), but other significant communities are found in the Northeast (Maine, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania) and Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin) states.

Buenos Aires also has the largest Japanese garden outside Japan, called Jardín Japonés, located in Palermo district.

Many of them ended up as laborers on coffee farms (for testimony of Kasato Maru's travelers that continued to Argentina see es:Café El Japonés, see also Shindo Renmei).

The most immigrants to come in one year peaked in 1933 at 24,000, but restrictions due to ever growing anti-Japanese sentiment caused it to die down and then eventually halt at the start of World War II.

Their community is unique in terms of their resistance against the internal conflict occurring in Colombia during the decade of the 1950s, a period known as La Violencia.

Japanese food known as Nikkei cuisine is a rich part of Peruvian-Japanese culture, which includes the use of seaweed broth and sushi-inspired versions of ceviche.

[72][73] As a result of Peru's gastronomic revolution and global gastrodiplomacy campaign, Nikkei is now recognized among international culinary networks as a cuisine that is uniquely a fusion of Japanese and Peruvian influences.

This change has created revenues for Japanese-Peruvian communities in Lima and enabled Nikkei chefs to open up restaurants in other metropolitan cities around the world.

[74] In recent years, many young Japanese have been migrating from Japan to Britain to engage in cultural production and to become successful artists in London.

[80] Early Japanese immigrants were particularly prominent in Broome, Western Australia, where until the Second World War they were the largest ethnic group, who were attracted to the opportunities in pearling.

[84] Arudou Debito, columnist for English-language newspaper The Japan Times, denounced the policy as "racist" as it only offered Japanese-blooded foreigners who possessed the special "person of Japanese ancestry" visa the option to receive money in return for repatriation to their home countries.

[84] Some commentators also accused it of being exploitative since most nikkei had been offered incentives to immigrate to Japan in 1990, were regularly reported to work 60+ hours per week, and were finally asked to return home when the Japanese became unemployed in large numbers.

[87] Note: The above data shows the number of Japanese nationals living overseas as of October 13, 2020, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.