University of Tokyo

The University of Tokyo abbreviated as Todai  is a research university located in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. The university has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is the first of Japan's National Seven Universities.It ranks as the highest in Asia and 21st in the world according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2015. The University of Tokyo is widely considered to be the most prestigious university in Japan.

The university was chartered by the Meiji government in 1877 under its current name by amalgamating older government schools for medicine and Western learning. It was renamed "the Imperial University Teikoku daigaku, in 1886, and then Tokyo Imperial University Tōkyō teikoku daigaku, in 1897 when the Imperial University system was created. In September 1923, an earthquake and the following fires destroyed about 700,000 volumes of the Imperial University Library.The books lost included the Hoshino Library Hoshino bunko, a collection of about 10,000 books.The books were the former possessions of Hoshino Hisashi before becoming part of the library of the university and were mainly about Chinese philosophy and history.

In 1947, after Japan's defeat in World War II, it re-assumed its original name. With the start of the new university system in 1949, Todai swallowed up the former First Higher School (today's Komaba campus) and the former Tokyo Higher School, which thenceforth assumed the duty of teaching first- and second-year undergraduates, while the faculties on Hongo main campus took care of third- and fourth-year students.

Although the university was founded during the Meiji period, it has earlier roots in the Astronomy Agency 1684Shoheizaka Study Office 1799 and the Western Books Translation Agency 1811.These institutions were government offices established by the Tokugawa shogunate 1603–1867, and played an important role in the importation and translation of books from Europe.

Kikuchi Dairoku, an important figure in Japanese education, served as president of Tokyo Imperial University.

For the 1964 Summer Olympics, the university hosted the running portion of the modern pentathlon event.

On 20 January 2012, Todai announced that it would shift the beginning of its academic year from April to September to align its calendar with the international standard. The shift would be phased in over five years.

According to the Japan Times, the university had 1,282 professors in February 2012. Of those, 58 were women.

In the fall of 2012 and for the first time, the University of Tokyo started two undergraduate programs entirely taught in English and geared toward international students. Programs in English at Komaba (PEAK), the International Program on Japan in East Asia and the International Program on Environmental Sciences.

One of the five campuses of the University of Tokyo, the Komaba Campus is home to the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences, and a number of advanced research facilities and campus services. This is the campus where all the freshmen and sophomores of the University of Tokyo spend their college life. The University of Tokyo is the only university in Japan which has a system of two years of general education before students can choose and move on to special fields of study.citation needed,The Komaba Campus is the cornerstone of general education, and was designated as the "center of excellence" for three new areas of research by the Ministry of Education and Science. There are currently over 7,000 students enrolled in the general education courses, about 450 students pursuing their specialties in the College of Arts and Sciences, and 1,400 graduate students in the advanced study.