Guangxi University

Guangxi University (广西大学) is a provincial public university in Nanning, Guangxi, China. It is affiliated with the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and co-funded by the regional government and the Ministry of Education. The university is part of Project 211 and the Double First-Class Construction.

The university helped pioneer higher education in central and southwestern China, where its faculty, students, and resources contributed to the creation of over 20 universities and academic departments during the mid 20th century. The university grants bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees across 27 colleges and departments and 98 undergraduate majors.

Established in 1928, the university was broken up during national education reforms in the 1950s. Its departments were relocated across China to create or bolster numerous other institutions including then Wuhan University, then Sun Yat-sen University, and then Guangxi Normal University.

History

Establishment and restructuring (1928–1938)

As early as 1925, the Guangxi provincial government began drafting plans to create Guangxi University. In the winter of 1927, the authorities invited scientist and educator Ma Junwu, a native of Guilin, Guangxi, to return to his homeland and help found the first modern university in the province. In October 1928, Guangxi University was established on Butterfly Mountain in the Hexi District of Wuzhou.

University operations were briefly suspended from 1929 to 1931 due to armed conflict in Guangxi and the neighboring Guizhou region.

In 1932, the provincial government established the Guangxi Provincial Teacher's College, an independent normal school in Guilin, Guangxi. However, in 1936, the government reorganized institutions of higher education. The Teacher's College was ordered to merge into Guangxi University, where it became part of the colleges of literature and law. The university also absorbed the Guangxi Provincial Medical College which became the Guangxi University School of Medicine. However, the authorities separated the university from its science and engineering faculties, which consolidated and became the independent Guangxi University of Science and Technology. Through these acquisitions and divestments, Guangxi University influenced the development of many institutions of higher education across Guangxi, a role it would retain during the education reorganization of the 1950s.

In 1936 Guangxi University relocated to a campus in the city of Guilin. There, the university established an Institute of Botany, several agricultural research facilities, and its Economic Research Institute.

National Guangxi University and war relocation (1939–1952)

In 1939, the Nationalist government expanded the university, adding several faculties including engineering and agriculture. As a result, the university was renamed National Guangxi University. The 40s and 50s would prove to be a difficult period of "great contributions and sacrifices" made by the newly named university, while also establishing its modern identity and impact as a contributor to the effort to establish higher education in central and southwestern China.

By the mid-1940s, the Second Sino-Japanese War, which had begun in 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in northeast China, had reached southern China. In the summer of 1944, an imminent Japanese invasion of Guangxi forced National Guangxi University to evacuate its Guilin campus and move south to Rong County. The university began conducting classes out of eight conference halls. By November, the nearby city of Liuzhou had begun wartime preparations. The university was forced to leave Guangxi entirely, relocating a second time to neighboring Guizhou province.

Colleges and Departments

Guangxi University has 26 colleges and schools:

• College of Mechanical Engineering
• College of Electric Engineering
• College of Civil Engineering and Architecture
• College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
• College of Resources, Environment and Materials
• College of Light Industry and Food Engineering
• College of Computer, Electronics and Information
• College of Marine Sciences
• College of Life Science and Technology
• College of Agriculture
• College of Animal Science and Technology
• College of Forestry
• College of Mathematics and Information Science
• College of Physical Science and Technology
• College of Liberal Arts
• College of Journalism and Communication
• College of Foreign Languages
• College of Arts
• College of Public Policy and Management
• Business School
• Law School
• School of Marxism
• College of Physical Education
• International College
• College of Continuing Education
• Medical College

Rankings and reputation

General Rankings

Guangxi University is consistently ranked the best in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, one of the highly ranked universities in the South China region outside Guangdong Province, and among the top 100 nationwide.

As of 2025, Guangxi University was ranked 346th globally by the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities, and 288th in the world by the University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP). The Academic Ranking of World Universities, also known as ShanghaiRanking, ranked Guangxi University in the top 301-400th in the world.

Generally, Guangxi University was ranked in the top 500 universities in the world by several major international universities rankings, including the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and the CWTS Leiden Ranking.

Research and Subjects Rankings

As of 2025. the CWTS Leiden Ranking ranked Guangxi University at #183 in the world based on their publications for the period 2020–2023. The Nature Index Annual Table 2025 by Nature Research ranked Guangxi University among the top 250 leading universities globally for the high quality of research publications in natural science. The U.S. News & World Report ranked Guangxi University among the top 400 best global universities in Engineering.

Research Institutes

China-ASEAN Research Institute

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