List of oldest universities in continuous operation

This is a list of the oldest extant universities in the world. To be listed on this page, an educational institution must satisfy the definition of a university at the time of founding; it must have been founded before 1500; and it must have been operational without a significant interruption ever since.

Note that because the awarding of academic degrees for advanced studies was historically a European custom, and the modern definition of a university includes the ability to grant degrees, the oldest institutions of higher learning that have always satisfied the modern definition of a university were in Europe. If, however, the definition is broadened to include ancient institutions that did not originally grant degrees but now do, then some non-European institutes predate the early European ones (for example, Nanjing University founded in 258 in China, and Al-Azhar University founded in 988 in Egypt).

List

• University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, founded 1088
• University of Paris, Paris, France, founded 1150 (now split between several autonomous universities)
• University of Oxford, Oxford, England, founded before 1167
• University of Modena, Modena, Italy, founded 1175
• University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, founded about 1209
• University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, founded 1218
• University of Padua, Padua, Italy, founded in 1222
• University of Naples, Naples, Italy, founded 1224
• University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France, founded 1229
• University of Siena, Siena, Italy, founded 1240
• University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France, founded before 1289
• University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, founded in 1290 in Lisbon
• Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, founded 1293 in Alcalá de Henares
• University of Rome La Sapienza, 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
• Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, founded 1386
• University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy, founded 1391
• University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany, founded 1402
• University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, founded 1409
• St. Andrews University, St. Andrews, Scotland, founded 1412
• University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany, founded 1419
• Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, founded 1425, now split between the French-speaking Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve and the Dutch-speaking Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, still at Leuven
• University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France, founded 1431
• University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, founded 1451
• Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey, founded 1453
• Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany, founded 1456
• Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany, founded 1457
• Basel University, Basel, Switzerland, founded 1460;
• Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, founded 1477
• Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, founded in 1477
• University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, founded 1479
• University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, founded 1494

Oldest Universities by Region (post 1500)

Many European countries had universities by 1500. After 1500, universities began to spread to other countries all over the world:

• Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is the oldest in the Americas, founded in 1538
• National University of San Marcos, in Lima, Peru, is the oldest in South America, founded in 1551.
• University of Leiden, is the oldest in the Netherlands, founded in 1575
• Trinity College, Dublin, is the oldest in Ireland, founded in 1592
• University of Santo Tomas, is in the Philippines, founded in 1611
• Harvard University is the oldest university in the U.S., founded in 1636, earlier than the College of William and Mary, but William and Mary was the first college in the U.S. to achieve university status, in 1779
• Ivan Franko National University of L'viv is the oldest university in Ukraine, founded in 1661
• Université Laval is the oldest university in Canada, founded 1663; University of New Brunswick is the oldest English language university in Canada, founded 1785
• University of Oslo is the oldest university in Norway, founded in 1811
• Serampore College is the oldest college with university status (though not a university) in South Asia, founded in 1818, (since 1883 only theological studies)
• University of Sydney is the oldest university in Australia, founded 1850
• University of Calcutta is the oldest full fledged university in South Asia, founded 1857
• University of Otago is the oldest university in New Zealand, founded 1863
• University of Tokyo is the oldest university in Japan, founded 1877
• University of Hong Kong is the oldest university in Hong Kong, founded 1910.
• Chulalongkorn University is the oldest university in Thailand, founded 1917.

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 to give the bachelor's degree is a modern American one; by European terms, Harvard College had already adopted the powers (if not the style) of a University in 1642. 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. And despite its name, Harvard is in fact presently a university.

es:Lista de las universidades más antiguas existentes en la actualidad it:Lista delle più antiche università tuttora in attività hu:A legrégebbi, jelenleg is működő egyetemek listája