National Taiwan University

History

Imperial University (1928–1945)

During the Japanese rule of Taiwan (1895–1945), the Empire of Japan established the modern Taiwanese education system by installing educational institutions that used Western-style academic systems. Den Kenjirō, the Governor-General of Taiwan, proposed the establishment of a university in Taiwan in 1922 and Japanese prime minister Tanaka Giichi presented a bill titled "Establishment of the Taiwan Imperial University" to the Cabinet of Japan on February 25, 1928. It was planned to be located on the grounds of the Taihoku Senior School of Agriculture and Forestry in Taihoku Prefecture.

On March 16, 1928, National Taiwan University was founded as "Taihoku Imperial University" (; ), the seventh of the Japanese Empire's Imperial Universities. It was Taiwan's first and only university and primarily served to promote Japanese culture, assimilate the local population, and direct students to professions useful to colonial expansion. The first freshman class was inaugurated on April 30, 1928, with classes beginning on May 5. Of the 1931 graduating class, 41 students were Japanese and five were Taiwanese.

The first faculties founded at Taihoku Imperial University were the Faculty of Literature and Politics and the Faculty of Science and Agriculture, totalling 59 students. Subsequently, the Faculty of Medicine was established in 1935 and the Faculty of Engineering was established in 1943. The Faculty of Science and Agriculture was divided in 1943 as two separate colleges: the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Agriculture. Because the university was considered a part of expanding the Japanese colonial empire in the Pacific Ocean, it was supported by multiple Japanese scholars and received government research grants for funding policy programs. Taiwanese students could not compete with Japanese students since the university prioritized Japanese enrollment. From 1928 to 1943, the university's student body was approximately 80 percent Japanese and 20 percent Taiwanese. Of its more than 300 faculty members in 1940, all professorships but one were held by Japanese scholars.

Taihoku college classes consisted of "lectures" taught by professors, assistant professors, and other faculty. By 1945, it had five colleges with a total of 114 lectures. The university's first president was Japanese historian (1928–1937), a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University who was appointed to the presidency on March 16, 1928. Japanese scholar Toyohachi Fujita (1869–1929) was appointed as the first dean of the Faculty of Literature and Politics while Kintaro Oshima was named the inaugural dean of the Faculty of Science and Agriculture. Enrollment years were shortened during World War II and university functions were limited following the American bombing of Taipei, which damaged its main gate and boulevard.

National University (1945–present)

After the Surrender of Japan in September 1945, the government of the Republic of China (ROC) assumed control of the university and initiated sinicization reforms. On August 15, 1945, the Kuomintang government appointed Lo Tsung-lo, a Japanese-educated academic, to oversee the transition of Taihoku's curriculum, teaching system, and faculties from its Japanese administration. At the time, the university had 1,614 faculty and staff members to teach 1,767 students, 351 of whom were Taiwanese. All Japanese students were later transferred back to Japan.

Under the Kuomintang, the ROC government initiated a program of reforming all universities and colleges in accordance with Chinese models that incorporated American academics, administration, and organization, in addition to installing American curriculum and degree requirements. Reforms also had the goal of reversing the Japanization that had influenced Taiwan during Japanese rule. Universities and colleges were opened to Taiwanese students without restrictions; Taihoku Imperial University was renamed "National Taiwan University" in November 1945 and it was reorganized and expanded to six faculties: Liberal Arts, Law, Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Agriculture. Up to 500 students could enroll in each faculty and the enrollment period was standardized to four years as opposed to the Japanese system of three to six years. Under governor Chen Yi, however, the school received no government funding from 1945 to 1947, causing it to cease operations until Chinese historian Fu Ssu-nien assumed the presidency. Fu oversaw the abolition of the Japanese college-preparatory school system and, by the end of 1947, the university operated entirely on a Chinese higher education model. The university became the most prominent educational institution in the country, with more than 80 percent of all Taiwanese high school applicants listing the university as their preferred choice for college admission by 1977. [[File:臺灣大學原帝大校舍─舊總圖書館(現校史館).JPG|thumb|The Old Main Library building (pictured) was repurposed as a gallery dedicated to NTU's history.]]In the following decades after World War II, National Taiwan University underwent rapid expansion. A night school was established to provide continuing education for adults in 1955 and the NTU Research Library was completed in 1968. The College of Management, the College of Public Health, and the College of Electrical Engineering were established in 1987, 1993, and 1997, respectively. The NTU Department of Law was expanded to the NTU College of Law in 1999 and the College of Life Science was established in 2003. In November 2003, the university consisted of ten colleges, 52 academic departments, 82 graduate institutes, 1,778 full-time faculty, and more than 27,000 students. By 2009, NTU grew to 54 departments, 100 graduate institutes (which offered 100 master's programs and 91 doctoral programs in total), and 25 research centers, including the Center for Condensed Matter Sciences, the Center for Biotechnology, the Japanese Research Center, and others.

Campuses

Main campus

The main campus of National Taiwan University is located in the Gongguan neighborhood of Daan District, Taipei City, and contains most of the university's departmental and administrative buildings.

The main campus houses some of the country's best-preserved examples of red brick Japanese colonial architecture, most of which are located along the Royal Palm Boulevard that leads to the five-story National Taiwan University Library building (completed in 1998), in addition to the Old Main Library, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Administration Building. The College of Liberal Arts, constructed during Japanese rule in Romanesque fashion, houses the university's landmark Fu Bell which rings 21 times at the end of each school period. The majority of campus buildings built after World War II are a hybrid of Chinese and Western architecture, 20 of which were designed by architect Wang Da-hong.

Other

The university has four additional campuses throughout Taiwan: the Shuiyuan Campus (7.7 hectares, located in Zhongzheng District, Taipei); the College of Medicine Campus (located in Zhongzheng District); the Yunlin Campus (54 hectares, located in Yunlin County); and the Zhubei Campus (22 hectares, located in Hsinchu County). The university also governs farms, forests, and hospitals for education and research purposes, including: visiting professor residences (34 hectares, located on Yangmingshan, Taipei); the NTU University Farm (19.5 hectares, located in Xindian District, New Taipei City); the Wenshan Botanical Garden (5 hectares, located in Shiding District, New Taipei City); the Experimental Forest Office (25.9 hectares, located in Nantou County); and the Experimental Forest (33,310 hectares, located in Nantou County). The total area of NTU exceeds 340 square kilometers (34,000 hectares), accounting for one percent of Taiwan's total land area.

Organization and academics

As of 2025, National Taiwan University consists of seventeen colleges, including Liberal Arts, Engineering, Science, Social Sciences, Political Science & Economics, Law, Bio-Resources & Agriculture, Management, Public Health, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Medicine, Life Science, General Education, the International College, the Graduate School of Advanced Technology, Design & Innovation, and Continuing Studies. They offer bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees in multiple disciplines and specializations across science, arts, and the humanities. Some majors are considered more competitive than others and require a higher score in the General Scholastic Ability Test or other national examinations. In recent years, medicine, electrical engineering, law, and finance have been the most selective majors. Most majors take four years to complete while the dental program and the medical program take six years to finish.

Students are able to select courses offered by any of the colleges, with up to 8,000 courses made available for selection each semester. Undergraduate students are required to take a mandatory core curriculum, which is composed of courses in Chinese, English, physical education, and public service. The medical school also requires each of its students to take philosophy and sociology classes as well as seminars in ethics and thanatology. Military training is no longer an obligatory course for male students, but it is a prerequisite if they plan to apply to become officers during their compulsory military service. Most students at the university come from wealthy families with higher socioeconomic status.

NTU is a member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, the Association of East Asian Research Universities, the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, and the European Union Centre in Taiwan. It also has partnerships with several American universities such as Washington University in St. Louis, which, since 2012, has funded NTU students to complete doctoral degrees at the university. In 2024, NTU and the University of Texas at Arlington began a partnership to host a dual master's degree program in architecture between the two universities.

The International Chinese Language Program (ICLP), founded by Stanford University, is located at National Taiwan University.

In 2021, the "International College" was established, primarily enrolling international students of foreign nationality and offering courses entirely in English. In July 2025, the Max Planck Society and the Institute for Advanced Study established the Max-Planck-IAS-NTU Center, a research center dedicated to studying particle physics, cosmology, and geometry on campus.

Chung Wai Literary Quarterly

Chung Wai Literary Quarterly () is a quarterly Taiwanese peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, featuring fiction, academic articles, reviews, translations, and non-fiction essays related to Western literature. Originally founded as a monthly literary magazine by and Chu Limin in 1972 and named Chung Wai Literary Monthly, the journal aims to encourage and promote critical and emerging approaches to non-local literatures and connect literature with other academic disciplines. In 2007, the journal renamed and restructured as a quarterly and in 2019, the journal was recognized as a Grade I academic journal by the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan. --

University rankings

Overall rankings

National Taiwan University is widely considered to be the best university in Taiwan. Most high school applicants generally consider NTU to be their most preferred choice for college.

NTU was ranked 63rd worldwide in the QS World University Rankings 2026, 140th worldwide in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026, 203rd worldwide in the US News 2022-2023, and 201-300th worldwide in the ARWU 2022.

The Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities (ARTU), which sorts universities based on their aggregate performance across THE, QS, and ARWU, ranked NTU 135th worldwide in 2022.

With other peering references of academic ranking, NTU also releases NTU World Universities ranking annually on the Double Ten Day, the National Holiday of the Republic of China.

Subject rankings

In the QS and ARWU subject rankings, NTU is ranked first in Taiwan in the majority of subjects. In the THE Subject Rankings, NTU is ranked first in Taiwan in all subjects.

List of presidents

The president heads the university. Each college is headed by a dean and each department by a chairman. Students elect their own representatives each year to attend administrative meetings.

National Taiwan University

• Chen Wen-chang: 8 January 2023 – present
• Kuan Chung-ming: 8 January 2019 – 7 January 2023
• (interim): October 2017 – January 2019
• : June 2013 – June 2017
• Lee Si-chen: August 2005 – June 2013
• Chen Wei-jao: 22 June 1993 – June 2005
• : March 1993 – June 1993
• : August 1984 – February 1993
• : August 1981 – July 1984
• Yen Cheng-hsing: June 1970 – July 1981
• Chien Szu-liang: January 1951 – May 1970
• : December 1950 – January 1951
• Fu Szu-nien: January 1949 – December 1950
• : June 1948 – December 1948
• Lu Chih-houng: August 1946 – May 1948
• Lo Tsung-lo: August 1945 – July 1946

Taihoku Imperial University

• Kazuo Ando (安藤一雄): March 1945 – August 1945
• : April 1941 – March 1945
• : September 1937 – April 1941
• : March 1928 – September 1937

Notable alumni

File:Lee Teng-hui official portrait.png|Lee Teng-hui, 4th President of the Republic of China (BS, 1949) File:陳水扁總統.jpg|Chen Shui-bian, 5th President of the Republic of China (LLB, 1974) File:Ma Ying-jeou MOFA Presidential Portrait 2008.png|Ma Ying-jeou, 6th President of the Republic of China (LLB, 1972) File:Tsai Ing-wen 2016 MOFA Portrait.png|Tsai Ing-wen, 7th President of the Republic of China (LLB, 1978) File:賴清德總統 (cropped 2).jpg|Lai Ching-te, 8th President of the Republic of China (BS, 1984) File:Yuan T. Lee official portrait (3x4 cropped).jpg|Yuan T. Lee,1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry(BS, 1959) File:柯文哲主席.jpg|Ko Wen-je,13th Mayor of Taipei(BM, 1986; PhD, 2002) File:Henry T. Yang.jpg|Henry T. Yang,Chancellor of UC Santa Barbara(BS, 1962) File:Andrew Yao P1130016 (cropped).jpg|Andrew Yao,Turing Award laureate(BS, 1967) File:翁啟惠副召集人.jpg|Chi-Huey Wong,President of Academia Sinica(BS, 1970; MS, 1977)

National Taiwan University has produced notable alumni in politics, business, academia, science, medicine, and numerous other fields. Graduates of the university disproportionately comprise a majority of the political and business elite in Taiwan. As of 2024, about half (48.7%) of all academicians of Academia Sinica are NTU graduates and 70 percent of all Taiwanese members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) are. 25 graduates of NTU are members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Five of the eight presidents of the Republic of China are graduates of the university: Lai Ching-te, the current president of Taiwan; Tsai Ing-Wen, the first woman to be elected to the position; Ma Ying-jeou; Chen Shui-bian, the first member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to hold the office; and Lee Teng-hui, the first native-born Taiwanese to become president. In addition, six out of the 13 vice-presidents of the Republic of China have graduated from NTU, including Lee Teng-hui, Lien Chan, Annette Lu, Wu Den-yih, Chen Chien-jen, and Lai Ching-te. The heads of major political parties—such as Eric Chu and Cheng Li-wun, chairs of the Kuomintang; Ko Wen-je, former mayor of Taipei and founder of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP); and Huang Kuo-chang, chairman of the TPP—also graduated from NTU.

In science, graduates include Yuan T. Lee, who received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of reaction dynamics, and Andrew Yao, who was awarded the Turing Award in 2000 for his contributions to cryptography and computation. Other scientific achievements by alumni include contributions to chemical synthesis by chemist Chi-Huey Wong, winner of the 2014 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, and contributions to biosynthesis by botanist Shang Fa Yang, winner of the 1991 Wolf Prize in Agriculture. Alumnus Chenming Hu was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 2020; Simon Sze the J. J. Ebers Award in 1991; and George Kuo the 1994 William Beaumont Prize for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus. Notable mathematicians who graduated from NTU include Fan Chung, the Paul Erdős Professor in Combinatorics at the University of California, San Diego; Wu-Chung Hsiang, topologist and professor at Princeton University; and Horng-Tzer Yau, Merton Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University.

In academia, alumni include two chancellors of American universities: Chang-Lin Tien, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and Henry T. Yang, chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Other academic administrators include Ambrose King, vice-chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Vincent Chang, vice-chancellor of BRAC University. Academicians of Academia Sinica include political scientist Chu Yun-han; economists Hu Sheng-cheng, Cyrus Chu, Cheng Hsiao, Yu Tzong-shian, Mai Chao-cheng, and George C. Tiao; and legal scholars Hu Fo and Hungdah Chiu.

Many of the university's graduates have gone on to found or head major companies, including Quanta Computer's Barry Lam, Mediatek's Tsai Ming-kai and Garmin's Min Kao.

Foreign alumni of the university include Canadian philosopher Roger T. Ames, who graduated from NTU with a master's degree in philosophy in 1972; British diplomat David Coates, ambassador of the United Kingdom to Ivory Coast; Roel Sterckx, Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History at the University of Cambridge; and South Korean philosopher Do-ol, who earned a master's degree from NTU.

Notes

References

Additional sources

References

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