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List of oldest universities in continuous operation

This is a list of the oldest universities in continuous operation. It includes universities founded before 1500.

• Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, originated in 258, modern incarnation founded 1902
• Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt, founded 988
• University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, founded 1088
• University of Oxford, Oxford, England, founded about 1096
• University of Paris, Paris, France, founded 1150 (now split between several autonomous universities)
• University of Modena, Modena, Italy, founded 1175
• University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, founded about 1208
• Salamanca University, Salamanca, Spain, founded 1218
• University of Padua, Padua, Italy, founded in 1222
• University of Naples, Naples, Italy, founded 1224
• University of Siena, Siena, Italy, founded 1240
• University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, founded 1285
• Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, founded 1293 in Alcala de Henares
• University of Rome, Rome, Italy, founded 1303
• University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, founded 1343
• University of Prague, Prague, Czech Republic, founded 1348
• University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, founded 1361
• Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland, founded 1364
• University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, founded 1365
• University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary, founded 1367
• University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, founded 1386
• University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy, founded 1391
• University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, founded 1409
• St. Andrews University, St. Andrews, Scotland, founded 1412
• Universität Rostock, Rostock, Germany, founded 1419
• Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, founded 1425
• Poitiers University, Poitiers, France, founded 1431
• University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, founded 1450
• University of Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, founded 1457
• Basel University, Basel, Switzerland, founded 1460;
• Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, founded 1477
• University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, founded 1479
• Eberhard Karls University, Tubingen, Germany, founded in 1477
• University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, founded 1494

By contrast, the earliest university in the Western Hemisphere is the National Autonomous University in Mexico, founded in 1551; the oldest in the United States is the University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1749 (the oldest college is Harvard College, founded in 1636); the oldest in Canada, Université Laval, founded 1663; the oldest in Australia is University of Sydney, founded 1850.

See also: Medieval university

Caveat

The actual date a University started to function is often rather hazy and differs a good deal from legend or from the date its ancestor-institution was founded. For example, it is generally admitted today that Oxford's foundation can't be precisely dated, but must lie somewhere in the mid-to-late 12th century.

Likewise, hair-splitting is pointless: the notion that a college could be empowered give the bachelor's degree is a modern American one; by European terms, Harvard had already adopted the powers (if not the style) of a University in 1642. No doubt it thought of itself as the germinal college of a New Cambridge University or such-like. Pennsylvania was simply the first American institution to call itself a university; but neither it nor Harvard nor any of the four other American colleges at the time was nearly big or diverse enough to be like a true European University.