The Yasuda Auditorium on the University of Tokyo's Hongo Campus.

The University of Tokyo (東京大学; Tōkyō Daigaku, abbreviated as 東大 Tōdai) is generally ranked as Japan's most prestigious university. The University has five campuses in Hongo, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano and 10 faculties with a total of around 28,000 students, some 2,100 of them foreign (a high number by Japanese standards). While nearly all academic disciplines are taught at the University, it is perhaps best known for its faculties of law and literature. This university has produced many top Japanese politicians though the power of the school has been gradually decreasing. For example; the ratio of its alumni in prime ministers is 2/3,1/2,1/4,1/5,1/6 in the 1950s,60s,70s,80s,90s, respectively. The University of Tokyo is widely thought of as being one of the most prestigious schools over many areas while its rival schools are Kyoto University as a public university, and Waseda University and Keio University as private universities. In science, Kyoto University has produced more top scientists, and Nobel prize winners. One of the presidents of Tokyo Imperial University was Kikuchi Dairoku.

It is one of the Tokyo 6 Universities.

The Akamon (Red Gate)

The main Hongo campus occupies the former estate of the Maeda family, Edo-era feudal lords of Kaga domain. The university's best known landmark, the Akamon (Red Gate) is a relic of this era. The symbol of the university is the ginkgo leaf, from the abundant trees throughout the area.

The university was founded by the Meiji government in 1877 under its current name by amalgamating older government schools for medicine and Western learning. It was renamed to Imperial University (帝國大學 Teikoku Daigaku) in 1886 and then "Tokyo Imperial University" (東京帝國大學 Tōkyō Teikoku Daigaku) in 1887, when the imperial university system was created. In 1947, after Japan's defeat in World War II, it assumed the original name again. With the start of the new university system in 1949, Todai swallowed up the old First Higher School (today's Komaba campus) and the old Tokyo Higher School, which henceforth 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.

The University of Tokyo has since 2004 been incorporated as a national university corporation under a new law which applies to all national universities.

Despite the incorporation which has led to increased financial independence and autonomy, The University of Tokyo is still partly controlled by the Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbukagakusho, or Monkasho).

Faculties and Graduate Schools

Faculties

• Law
• Medicine
• Engineering
• Letters
• Science
• Agriculture
• Economics
• Arts and Sciences
• Education
• Pharmaceutical Sciences

Graduate Schools

• Law and Politics
• Medicine
• Engineering
• Humanities and Sociology
• Science
• Agricultural and Life Sciences
• Economics
• Arts and Sciences
• Education
• Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Mathematical Sciences
• Frontier Sciences
• Information Science and Technology
• Interdisciplinary Information Studies
• Public Policy

Research Institutes

• Institute of Medical Science
• Earthquake Research Institute
• Institute of Oriental Culture
• Institute of Social Science
• Institute of Socio-Information and Communication Studies
• Institute of Industrial Science
• Historiographical Institute
• Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences
• Institure for Cosmic Ray Research
• Institute for Solid State Physics
• Ocean Research Institute

Famous alumni

Prime Ministers

• Yoshida Shigeru(1946-1947,1948-1954)
• Kishi Nobusuke(1957-1960)
• Sato Eisaku(1964-1972)
• Nakasone Yasuhiro(1982-1987)
• Miyazawa Kiichi(1991-1993)

Others

• Toshihiko Fukui, governor of the Bank of Japan
• Tadatoshi Akiba, mayor of Hiroshima
• Abe Kobo, author
• Akutagawa Ryunosuke, author
• Esaki Leona, physicist, Nobel laureate
• Kawabata Yasunari, author, Nobel laureate
• Koshiba Masatoshi, physicist, Nobel laureate
• Mishima Yukio, author
• Mori Ogai, author
• Natsume Soseki, author
• Oe Kenzaburo, author, Nobel laureate
• Ong Iok-tek, linguist
• Masako Owada, Crown Princess
• Toyoda Eiji, industrialist
• Suzuki Daisetsu, Buddhist scholar
• Kiyozawa Manshi, Buddhist thinker
• Watsuji Tetsuro, Philosopher

University of Tokyo in fiction

• In the manga and anime Love Hina, the main character, Keitaro Urashima, is a ronin who failed the entrance exam for the University of Tokyo. He later passes the exam.
• The stalker-teacher Suguru Teshigawara from the Great Teacher Onizuka manga and anime series constantly boasts of his University of Tokyo qualifications as compared to the fifth-rate college dropout Onizuka.

External links

• University of Tokyo (http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/)