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 have been founded before 1500, and it must have been operational without a significant interruption ever since.

• Hunan University, Changsha, China, founded 976 (developed to be modern university from Yuelu Academy in 1926)
• 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 1209
• 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
• 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)

Most European countries (also China and Egypt) 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
• University of Leiden, is the oldest in the Netherlands, founded in 1575
• University of Santo Tomas, is in the Philippines, founded in 1611
• Harvard University is the oldest university in the USA, founded in 1636
• Ivan Franko National University of L'viv is the oldest university in the Ukraine, founded in 1661
• Université Laval is the oldest university in Canada, founded 1663
• University of Oslo is the oldest university in Norway, founded in 1811
• Serampore College is the oldest 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 Otago is the oldest university in New Zealand, founded 1863
• University of Tokyo is the oldest university in Japan, founded 1877

See also: Medieval university

Earliest Known University

The Nalanda University in Bihar, India, near the state capital of Patna is believed to be the oldest known university in the world, founded in the 5th century BCE. In 1193, it was destroyed by a Turkish invader named Bakhtiyar Ud-Din Khilji.

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. 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.