Emperor Naruhito, who turns 62 today, is known for his compassionate and sociable personality, as well as his proficiency in English, as the first emperor to have studied outside Japan.
Born in 1960, the eldest son of Emperor Emeritus Akihito and Empress Emerita Michiko, the emperor made his first overseas trip to Australia in 1974. After he graduated from the Department of History in the Faculty of Letters of Gakushuin University, he traveled to the United Kingdom in 1983 and spent two years living in a dormitory and studying at Oxford University’s Merton College. He studied the history of transport on the River Thames, and his interest in issues associated with water and waterways has continued today, as can be seen in his involvement in the United Nations’ Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, where he served as honorary president from 2007 to 2015.