The University of Cambridge, located in Cambridge, England, is a public collegiate research university and one of the world's oldest universities, having been founded in 1209. Its establishment arose from scholars departing the University of Oxford following disagreements with local townspeople. Cambridge is composed of 31 semi-autonomous colleges and over 150 departments, faculties, and institutions. These colleges are self-governing within the university framework, managing their own affairs and student selection. The University of Cambridge is routinely ranked among the top universities globally. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026 ranks Cambridge as third in the UK and fifth worldwide.
Cambridge's libraries hold approximately 16 million books, with around 9 million held in Cambridge University Library, a legal deposit library. The University has a long list of notable alumni including: Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, Lord Byron, and Sylvia Plath. As of 2024, alumni, academics, and affiliates have won 126 Nobel Prizes. Undergraduate teaching is based on small group supervisions in the colleges, supplemented by lectures and seminars from the central university faculties. The University also maintains eight cultural and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum, and a botanic garden.
