The estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan reached 2,294,700 last month, up 21.2 percent from a year earlier, the highest number ever for the month of May, the Japan Tourism Agency said Wednesday.

The agency attributed the rise mainly to an 85 percent increase in the number of visiting South Koreans, to 558,900.

The number of foreign visitors was above 2 million people for the sixth consecutive month.

Visitors from China totaled 517,100, and those from Taiwan came to 407,500.

The number of overseas tourists in the first five months of this year was 11,410,700, up 17.3 percent from the same period a year ago.