Hāfu is a Japanese language term used to refer to a person of half Japanese and half non-Japanese ancestry. A loanword from English, the term literally means "half," a reference to the individual's non-Japanese heritage. The word can also be used to describe anyone with mixed-racial ancestry in general. As many consider Japan to be one of the most homogeneous societies on the planet, children who have one non-Japanese parent are called hāfu Japanese and often face prejudice and discrimination from Japanese citizens of full Japanese descent. Hāfu individuals are well represented in Japanese media and abroad, and recent studies in the 2010s estimate that 1 in 30 children born in Japan are born to interracial couples.

Japanese people are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago. Japanese people constitute 97.6% of the population of the country of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 126 million people are of Japanese descent, making them one of the largest ethnic groups. Approximately 122.0 million Japanese people are residents of Japan, and there are approximately 4 million members of the Japanese diaspora, known as Nikkeijin (日系人).