Peking University is a comprehensive and National key university. The campus, known as "Yan Yuan"-- the gardens of Yan, is situated at the northeast of the Haidian District at the western suburbs of Beijing.

The University consists of 6 colleges and 29 departments, with 85 specialties for undergraduates, 3 specialties for the second Bachelor's degree, 146 specialties for Master candidates and 97 specialties for Doctoral candidates. While still laying stress on basic sciences, the university has paid special attention to the development of applied sciences.

At present, Peking University has 45 research institutes and 52 research centers, and there are 2 national engineering research centers, 42 key national disciplines, 5 national key laboratories, and 6 national key laboratories and 4 state special laboratories are still under construction.

The university has made an effective combination of the research on important scientific issues with the training of personnel with high level specialized knowledge and professional skill as demanded by the country's socialist modernization. It strives not only for the simultaneous improvements in teaching and research work, but also for the promotion of interaction and mutual promotion among various subjects.
Thus Peking University has become a center for teaching and research and a university of the new type, consisting of diverse branches of learning such as pure and applied sciences, social sciences and the humanities, and sciences of management and education. Its aim is to rank among the world's best universities at the beginning of the next century.

History

Peking University, the former Jing Shi Da Xue Tang(the Metropolitan University) of the Qing Dynasty, opened in December 1898. The Metropolitan University was then not only the most prestigious institution of higher learning but also the highest administrative organization of education in China. In May 1912, the Metropolitan University was renamed "Peking University". In 1917, its presidency was taken up by Mr.Cai Yuanpei, an outstanding scientist, educationist and democratic revolutionary, who played an active role in the reform and development of the university. By 1919, the university developed into the country's largest institution of higher learning, with 14 departments and an enrollment of more than 2,000 students.

Peking University has a glorious revolutionary tradition. In 1919, the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal May 4th Movement was initiated from the university, which had been the centre of the Chinese New-Culture Movement and the earliest base for the dissemination of Marxism in China. Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao and Mao Zedong, founders of the Chinese communist Party, as well as Lu Xun, a great writer, thinker and chief leader of the Chinese New-Culture Movement, all either taught or held offices.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government carried out, in 1952, a nationwide readjustment of colleges and universities with the aim to promote higher education and quicken the training of personnel with specialized knowledge and skill by pooling the country's manpower and material resourses. After the readjustment, Peking University became a university comprising departments of both liberal Arts and Sciences and emphasizing the teaching and research of basic sciences.