The University of Tokyo has the longest history among universities in Japan. It offers courses in essentially all academic disciplines at both undergraduate and graduate levels and provides research facilities for these disciplines. The University aims to provide its students with opportunities for intellectual development as well as for the acquisition of professional knowledge and skills. It has a faculty of approximately 28,000 professors, associate professors, and lecturers, and a total student enrollment of about 27,000. There are about 2,100 international students, and about 1,600 foreign scholars who come to the University for short or extended visits. The University is known for the excellence of its faculty and students; many of its graduates are leaders in the government, in business, and in the academic world.

The University organization consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, nine faculties, and fourteen graduate schools. The nine faculties are Law, Medicine, Engineering, Letters, Science, Agriculture, Economics, Education, and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The graduate schools are Law and Politics, Medicine, Engineering, Humanities and Sociology, Science, Agricultural and Life Sciences, Economics, Arts and Sciences, Education, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Frontier Sciences. The College of Arts and Sciences and the nine faculties are nearly autonomous bodies within the University and function as semi-independent units with the deans as their heads.

The University operates eleven institutes: the Institute of Medical Science, the Earthquake Research Institute, the Institute of Oriental Culture, the Institute of Social Science, the Institute of Socio-Information and Communication Studies, the Institute of Industrial Science, the Historiographical Institute, the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, the Institute for Solid State Physics, and the Ocean Research Institute.

The University of Tokyo Library System is composed of the General Library and the 57 departmental libraries within the faculties, institutes, and other research facilities. As of 2001, the library system had holdings of over 7,907,000 volumes; 171,000 volumes are acquired annually, and it currently receives 37,000 periodicals. The University Museum is unique; it is, in fact, a collection of specialized museums, covering a wide range of fields from paleontology to Andean anthropology.

The main campus of the University is located in Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo; it occupies what was once the Tokyo estate of a major feudal lord. Parts of the 17th century landscaping of the original estate have been preserved and provide greenery and open space.

The University of Tokyo website can be viewed at www.u-tokyo.ac.jp. For information, contact Mami Yagihashi, Student Exchange Planning Group, The University of Tokyo.