Introduction

Wuhan University is a key university directly under the administration of the Education Ministry of the People's Republic of China. It is located in Hubei Province's capital Wuhan known as "The thoroughfare leading to nine provinces". The university has rolling physical features with the scenic Luojia Hill in it and the beautiful East Lake by its side, seeming in picturesque disorder. Its campus is wooded and green, and has fragrant flowers everywhere all the year round, the buildings are in special architectural styles, magnificent and mansion-looking. For the above reasons, Wuhan University is widely known as one of the most beautiful universities in the world.

The university dates back to Ziqiang Institute, which was founded in 1893 by Zhang Zhidong, governor of Hubei and Hunan Provinces in late Qing Dynasty after his memorial to the throne was approved by the Qing Government. Later, it changed its name several times before it was named National Wuhan University in July 1928. During the War of Resistance against Japan, Wuhan University moved to Leshan, Sichuan Province and returned to Luojia Hill after the victory of the war. By the end of 1946, the university had six colleges, i.e., the colleges of liberal arts, law, sciences, engineering, agriculture and medicine.

Wuhan University boasts a campus which covers an area of 5508 mu and it has a floorage of 2.42 million square metres. There are large modernized teaching buildings, laboratory buildings, gymnasiums, sports grounds, swimming pools, archive buildings, and a specimen building with more then 200,000 pieces of valuable animal and plant specimens. The university's libraries have a collection of approximately 5.2 million volumes, subscribe to more then 10,000 kinds of Chinese and foreign periodicals, are the central-China canter officially decided for the "211 Project" documents--ensuring system of the Chinese universities and colleges.

It now has two key State-level laboratories, three State-level discipline laboratories, two State-level research centers in engineering, six national research bases for humanities and social sciences, and seven national bases for fostering basic science personnel. Over twenty academic periodicals, Wuhan University Journal included, are published by the university, which has its own presses including an audiovisual material publishing house, colleges of foreign students’ education and adult education, East Lake branch school, and three attached hospitals which are all of first-class according to the official standard.

During the last ten years the university sent abroad thousands of members of different kinds under various programs, invited 300 hundred famous foreign scholars and political personages to be its part-time professors, honorary professors or guest professors, and established relations of academic cooperation and exchanges with 200-odd universities, colleges and scientific research institutions in more then 60 countries and regions.

(Source: Wuhan University)