List of Westerners who visited Japan before 1868

16th century

• Two Portuguese traders António da Mota and Francisco Zeimoto land on the island of Tanegashima in 1543. They are the first documented Europeans to set foot in Japan.
• Fernão Mendes Pinto Claimed to be one of the first Westerners who visited Japan and wrote about the introduction of guns to the Japanese, though the account is almost certainly untrue.
• Francis Xavier The first Roman Catholic missionary who brought Christianity to Japan.
• Cosme de Torres A Spanish Jesuit who successfully converted Ōmura Sumitada to Christianity – the first Christian daimyō.
• Luis de Almeida A Portuguese Jesuit who established the first western hospital in Japan and negotiated the opening of the port of Yokoseura to Portuguese traders.
• Gaspar Vilela A Portuguese Jesuit who, in a departure from Xavier's methods, learned the Japanese language and talked directly with daimyos, opening the center of Japan to the mission.
• Luís Fróis A Jesuit who befriended Oda Nobunaga and published the account later. His record still serves as an important resource for Japanese historians.
• João Rodrigues A Portuguese Jesuit priest who carried out missionary work in Japan and served as an interpreter for both Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Rodrigues is also known for authoring notable works on Japanese culture and language.

  17th century

• William Adams - The first Englishman to reach Japan. Among the first Westerners to become a samurai, under Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
• Jan Joosten van Lodensteyn – Adams' shipmate, also among the first Westeners to become a samurai, who became an advisor for the shōgun. He is remembered in Japan in the Yaesu area of Tokyo and as Yaesu on one exit of the Tokyo Station.
• Cristóvão Ferreira - A Jesuit missionary who committed apostasy after being tortured in the anti-Christian purges of Japan. His apostasy is the main theme of the novel Silence by Shūsaku Endō.
• Luis Sotelo – A Franciscan friar who proselytized in the Tōhoku region of Japan with the help of Daimyo Date Masamune. He was executed after re-entering Japan illegally in 1624.
• John Saris – Captain of the English ship Clove, who met with shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu to establish a trading post in Japan.
• Nicolaes Couckebacker - VOC Opperhoofd in Hirado, who assisted the government in 1638 to suppress Japanese Christian rebels led by Amakusa Shirō.
• Giuseppe Chiara - He entered Japan at a time when Christianity was strictly forbidden in an attempt to locate fellow priest Cristóvão Ferreira who had apostatized his Christian faith at the hands of torture by the Japanese authorities in 1633. Di Chiara was also tortured and eventually became an apostate as well.
• Engelbert Kaempfer – A German naturalist and physician. His descriptions in History of Japan became the chief source of Western knowledge about the country for nearly two centuries.

  18th century

• Giovanni Battista Sidotti An Italian Jesuit priest who entered Japan illegally and was arrested. His communication with the scholar Arai Hakuseki resulted in the book Seiyō Kibun.
• Robert Janson, a native of Waterford seized off the coast of Kyushu and brought to Dejima Island.
• Martin Spangberg visited the island of Honshu in 1738, being in command of the first Russian naval squadron specifically sent to seek for a diplomatic encounter with the Japanese. The Russians landed in a scenic area which is now part of the Rikuchu Kaigan National Park. Despite the prevalent policy of sakoku, the sailors were treated with politeness if not friendliness.
• Isaac Titsingh A Dutch East India Company Opperhoofd at Dejima in Nagasaki Bay.
• Adam Laxman A Finnish-Swedish national working for Russia as a navigator who stayed in Hokkaido briefly. He was sent by Catherine the Great to return Daikokuya Kōdayū to Japan.
• Carl Peter Thunberg A Swedish naturalist who came as a surgeon on a Dutch East India Company ship. He was a follower of Carl Linnaeus whose scientific activities resulted in the first detailed description of the flora and fauna of Japan.
• Hendrik Doeff former Dutch East India Company Opperhoofd who maintained the Dutch nationality of Dejima even after Napoleon conquered the Netherlands. He presided over the Dutch East India Company during the Phaeton incident.

  19th century

• Nikolai Rezanov A Russian diplomat who stayed in Nagasaki for 6 months. He was commissioned by Alexander I as Russian ambassador to Japan to conclude a commercial treaty, but his efforts were thwarted by the Japanese government.
• Vasily Golovnin, Fedor Mur, Andrey Khlebnikov with the crew - Russian navigators who were held captive for two years on the island of Hokkaido. Golovnin's book, Captivity in Japan During the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, was widely read by Europeans. Khlebnikov's mémoires left unpublished.
• Philipp Franz von Siebold A German physician, botanist in Dutch service at Dejima who brought Western medicine to Japan. He was expelled from Japan after being accused as a spy.
• Heinrich Bürger, A German scientist in Dutch service who became a pharmacist and botanist on Dejima.
• Ranald MacDonald, The first native English-speaker to teach English in Japan, who taught Einosuke Moriyama, one of the chief interpreters to handle the negotiations between Commodore Perry and the Tokugawa shogunate.
• Matthew C. Perry A Commodore of the U.S. Navy who opened Japan to the West in 1854.
• Townsend Harris The first United States Consul-General to Japan.
• Henry Heusken A Dutch-American interpreter for the American consulate in Japan who was assassinated by anti-foreigner rōnin. His diary was published as Japan journal, 1855–1861.
• José Luis Ceacero Inguanzo Spanish Captain in Manila, Philippines. He was named samurai by the lord of Chikuzen. Advisor to the Meiji Government.
• Rutherford Alcock The first British diplomatic representative to live in Japan. His book, The Capital of the Tycoon, became one of the first books to describe Edo-period Japan systematically.
• James Curtis Hepburn An American physician, educator and Christian missionary who is known for the Hepburn romanization system, enabling westerners to read and write Japanese in Roman script.
• Thomas Blake Glover A Scottish merchant who supported the anti-Edo government militant Satchō Alliance. His residence in Nagasaki still remains as a museum.
• Margaret Tate Kinnear Ballagh An American missionary who lived in Yokohama. Her account Glimpses Of Old Japan, 1861–1866 is the only book written by a Western woman staying in Edo period Japan.
• Nicholas of Japan A Russian Orthodox priest, monk, archbishop and saint who introduced the Eastern Orthodox Church to Japan.
• Charles Wirgman An English artist and cartoonist, the creator of Japan Punch which was the first magazine in Japan.
• Charles Lennox Richardson A British merchant who was murdered by samurai in the Namamugi Incident which later led to the Bombardment of Kagoshima.
• Ernest Mason Satow A British diplomat who assisted the negotiations during the Bombardment of Kagoshima, and kept a diary of his career in Japan.
• Aimé Humbert A Swiss politician who established a treaty with Japan and later published Japan and the Japanese Illustrates, which captured many detailed scenes of Edo-period Japan.
• Felice Beato A photographer who recorded many rare views of Edo Period Japan.
• Heinrich Schliemann An archaeologist who stayed in Japan for two months.
• Frederik Blekman reached Nagasaki on 16 April 1859 via Jakarta. Translator and empresario