Sir George Thomas Staunton, Baronet, (May 26, 1781 - August 10, 1859) was an English traveller and Orientalist.

Born near Salisbury, he was the son of Sir George Leonard Staunton (1737-1801), first baronet, diplomatist and Orientalist, and in 1792 accompanied his father, who had been appointed secretary to Lord Macartney's mission to China, to the Far East (1792-1794). He acquired a good knowledge of Chinese language, and in 1798 was appointed a writer in the British East India Company's factory at Canton (Guangzhou), and subsequently its chief.

In 1805 he translated a work of Dr George Pearson into Chinese, thereby introducing vaccination into China. In 1816 he proceeded as second commissioner on a special mission to Beijing with Lord Amherst and Sir Henry Ellis .

Between 1818 and 1852 he was MP for several English constituencies, finally for Portsmouth. He was a member of the East India Committee , and in 1823, in conjunction with Henry Thomas Colebrooke founded the Royal Asiatic Society.

His publications include translations of Ta Tsing leu lee , being the Fundamental Laws of China (1810), the first Chinese book translated into English, and of the Narrative of the Chinese Embassy to the Khan of the Tourgouth Tartars (1821); Miscellaneous Notices Relating to China and our Commercial Intercourse with that Country (1822); Notes of Proceedings and Occurrences during the British Embassy to Peking (1824); Observations on our Chinese Commerce (1850). For the Hakluyt Society he edited Gonzalez de Mendoza 's History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China.