List of Chinese Nobel laureates

The Nobel Prize

Since 1957, there have been fourteen Chinese (including Chinese-born) winners of the Nobel Prize . The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901. An associated prize, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968 and first awarded in 1969.

Following is a list of Nobel laureates who have been citizens of the Republic of China or the People's Republic of China ^[1] and of overseas birth.

Laureates

Chinese citizens

Republic of China (Taiwan)

The following are Nobel laureates who have been citizens of the Republic of China at any point before, during, or after receiving the Nobel Prize. ^[2]

Year	Laureate	Chinese name	English name	Category	Life	Rationale	Place of birth
1957		楊振寧	Yang Chen-Ning	Physics	1922–2025	"for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles" [3]	Hefei, Anhui, China
		李政道	Tsung-Dao Lee	Physics	1926–2024		Shanghai, China
1976		丁肇中	Samuel C. C. Ting	Physics	1936–	"for pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind." [4]	Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States Dual-citizen of United States and Republic of China
1986		李遠哲	Yuan T. Lee	Chemistry	1936–	"for contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes". [5]	Shinchiku City, Shinchiku Prefecture, Japanese Taiwan

People's Republic of China

The following are Nobel laureates who have been citizens of the People's Republic of China at any point before, during, or after receiving the Nobel Prize. ^[6]

Year	Laureate	Chinese name	English name	Category	Life	Rationale	Place of birth
1957		楊振寧	Yang Chen-Ning	Physics	1922–2025	Shared with Tsung-Dao Lee; "for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles" [3]	Hefei, Anhui, China
2000		高行健	Gao Xingjian	Literature	1940–	"for an œuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama". [7]	Ganzhou, Jiangxi, China
2010		劉曉波	Liu Xiaobo	Peace	1955–2017	"for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China". [8]	Changchun, Jilin, China
2012		莫言	Mo Yan	Literature	1955–	"who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary". [9]	Gaomi, Shandong, China
2015		屠呦呦	Tu Youyou	Physiology or Medicine	1930–	"for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria". [10]	Ningbo, Zhejiang, China

Chinese diaspora

Year	Laureate	Chinese name	English name	Category	Life	Rationale	Place of birth [note 1]
1997		朱棣文	Steven Chu	Physics	1948–	"for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light". [11]	St. Louis, Missouri, United States [12]
1998		崔琦	Daniel C. Tsui	Physics	1939–	"for discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations" [13]	Pingdingshan, Henan, China
2008		錢永健	Roger Y. Tsien	Chemistry	1952–2016	"for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP" [14]	New York City, New York, United States [15]
2009		高錕	Charles K. Kao	Physics	1933–2018	"for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication" [16]	Shanghai, China
2024		杰米斯·哈萨比斯	Demis Hassabis	Chemistry	1976–	“for protein structure prediction” [17]	London, England, United Kingdom

Others

Tibetan

The following are the Nobel laureates who were of uncertain citizenship at the time they were awarded the Nobel Prize.

Year	Laureate			Category	Life	Rationale	Place of birth
1989		བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་	14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)	Peace	1935–	"for advocating peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people." [18]	Taktser, Qinghai, China [note 2]

See also

• List of Chinese people
• List of Chinese scientists
• List of black Nobel laureates
• List of Latino and Hispanic Nobel laureates
• List of Nobel laureates by country

Notes

1. The Nobel website lists the country of Residence at the time of the award for both the Literature and Peace (if goes to a person) prizes; see "Facts" information of the individuals at and . While the prizes for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Economic Sciences are listed by Affiliation at the time of the award; see "Facts" information of the individuals at , , , and . The official Nobel website only lists the country of the person's affiliated insititions for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Economic Sciences prizes, and not the citizenship of the person himself.
2. The Nobel Peace Prize 1989 indicates Dalai Lama was born in Tibet in 1935. Taktser is a village located in Greater Tibet, the eastern part of which was called Qinghai (spelled Tsinghai at the time) by the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China. Although Tibet itself was not controlled by the Republic of China government, Tsinghai (Qinghai) province was under the authority of the government of the Republic of China. ^[19]

References

1. "Chronological list of All Nobel Laureates on the official website of the Nobel Prize committee". Archived from the original on 5 June 2016. Retrieved 10 October 2009.
2. Country: China. Physics 1957 (by Internet Archive)
3. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1957". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 7 March 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
4. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1976". nobelprize.org. Archived from the original on 26 August 2009. Retrieved 9 October 2009.
5. "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1986". Nobelprize.org. Archived from the original on 21 October 2008. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
6. Country: China. Physics 1957 (by Internet Archive)
7. "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2000". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 29 June 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
8. "The Nobel Prize in Peace 2010". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 16 March 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
9. "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 10 October 2012. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
10. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 21 August 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
11. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1997". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 26 December 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
12. Physics 1976 (by Internet Archive)
13. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1998". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
14. "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 15 October 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
15. Physics 1976 (by Internet Archive)
16. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 14 June 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
17. "Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 7 October 2026.
18. "The Nobel Peace Prize 1989". NobelPrize.org. Archived from the original on 23 July 2021. Retrieved 13 October 2021.
19. The Tsinghai Province was established as early as 1928, and Taktser since then has been a city within its region; see also the 1930 national map of the Republic of China (ROC) Archived 18 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine , and the 1936 political regional map of the ROC Archived 6 April 2010 at the Wayback Machine in Wikimedia Commons.