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This is a list of the oldest Universities. To be listed on this page, the educational institution must satisfy the definition of university at the time of founding, it must be founded before 1500, and it must be operational without a significant interruption ever since.
- Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, founded 258 (as Nanjing Imperial Central College 南京太学 Nanjing Taixue; became modern college in 1902 and modern university in the early 1920s)
- Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt, founded 988 (developed to be modern university from theology institute in 1960s)
- 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 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 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
- Poitiers University, Poitiers, France, founded 1431
- University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, founded 1450
- 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
By contrast, the earliest university in the Americas is the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic founded in 1538, although by difference from its Dominican counterpart National University of Saint Mark founded in 1551 has been in continuously operation without any kind of interruption; 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 and the oldest in south Asia is the University of Calcutta, founded 1857.
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. And despite its name, Harvard is in fact presently a university.
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