Central South University (CSU) is a comprehensive and national key university under the direct administration of the Ministry of Education in China. CSU was established in April, 2000 on the basis of the amalgamation of the three former individual universities, namely Central South University of Technology, Hunan Medical University and Changsha Railway University. CSU is situated in Changsha, Hunan. Prof. Li Jian is secretary of the Communist Party of China's CSU Committee, and Prof.Huang Boyun, an academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, is president of CSU.

The fields of study at CSU cover 10 branches of learning, namely engineering, science, medicine, management, literature, law, economics, philosophy, education and history. The university now offers 75 undergraduate programs, 207 master's programs and 128 doctoral programs. It has 18 postdoctoral exchange centers, 17 national key disciplines, 4 national key laboratories, 7 national or ministry-level key training or research centers and 5 national talent training bases and research bases. Among its faculty members, there are 4 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Science, 12 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 367 doctoral supervisors, more than 1007 full professors and more than 2152 associate professors. At present, the total number of full-time students at CSU has reached more than 40,000, including more than 8000 graduates working for master's and doctoral degrees, about 33,000 undergraduates, more than 70 overseas students and more than 15,000 students taking courses in degree and non-degree programs of adult education.

CSU is among the 32 universities first acceded to the "211 Project". CSU covers an area of 1,990,394 square meters and has a total floor space of 1,627,769 square meters.It also uses advanced teaching and research equipment with a total value of 1.4 billion yuan (RMB). The university libraries have a collection of 2,930,000 volumes. Information digitalization and automatic management are applied in these libraries. The university has 3 top affiliated hospitals which enjoy good reputation.

CSU is now struggling for the goal of constructing of a high-level, research oriented comprehensive university well-known both at home and abroad.

CSU ranks 16th from 2001-2005 nationally.