University of Tokyo
The University of Tokyo is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era institutions, its direct precursors include the Tenmongata, founded in 1684, and the Shōheizaka Institute.
Although established under its current name, the university was renamed Imperial University in 1886 and was further retitled Tokyo Imperial University to distinguish it from other Imperial Universities established later. It served under this name until the official dissolution of the Empire of Japan in 1947, when it reverted to its original name.
Today, the university consists of 10 faculties, 15 graduate schools, and 11 affiliated research institutes. As of 2023, it has a total of 13,974 undergraduate students and 14,258 graduate students. The majority of the university's educational and research facilities are concentrated within its three main Tokyo campuses: Hongō, Komaba, and Kashiwa. Additionally, UTokyo operates several smaller campuses in the Greater Tokyo Area and over 60 facilities across Japan and globally. UTokyo's total land holdings amount to 326 square kilometres, placing it amongst the largest landowners in the country.
As of 2025, UTokyo's alumni and faculty include 17 prime ministers of Japan, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, seven astronauts, and a Fields Medalist. Additionally, UTokyo alumni have founded some of Japan's largest companies, such as Toyota and Hitachi. UTokyo alumni also held chief executive positions in approximately a quarter of the Nikkei 225 companies in 2014, a fifth of the total seats in the National Diet in 2023, two-thirds of the prefectural governorships in 2023, and two-thirds of the justiceships at the Supreme Court of Japan in 2024.
History
Origins
The University of Tokyo traces its roots to three independent institutes founded during the Edo period. The oldest, a Shogun-funded Confucian school called Senseiden, was founded in 1630 by Razan Hayashi in Ueno. This school was renamed the Shoheizaka Institute and came to be operated directly by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1791 as part of the Kansei Reforms. The Tenmongata, founded in 1684, was the astronomical research and education arm of the Shogunate. It evolved into the Kaisei School, a school for Western learnings, after the Meiji Restoration. The Kanda Otamagaike Vaccination Centre, established in 1858, evolved into a school of Western medicine called Tokyo Medical School. Although plans to establish the country's first university had been in place just after the Meiji Restoration, it was not until around 1875 that it was decided to form the university by merging these schools.Founding and early days
The University of Tokyo was chartered on April 12, 1877, by the Meiji government. Corresponding to the fields covered by the predecessor schools, it started with four faculties: Law, Science, Letters, and Medicine. The Imperial College of Engineering later merged into the university as the Faculty of Engineering. In 1886, the university was renamed Imperial University, and it adopted the name Tokyo Imperial University in 1897 after the founding of the next imperial university, what is now Kyoto University. By 1888, all faculties had completed their relocation to the former site of the Tokyo residence of the Maeda family in Hongo, where they continue to operate today. Among the few extant structures built before this relocation is a gate called Akamon, which has since become a widely recognised symbol of the university.File:Kume Matsuoka Akutagawa Naruse.jpg|thumb|UTokyo students,During its initial two decades as a modern institution, UTokyo benefited from the contributions of European and American scholars. In 1871, the Meiji Government made a decision about the direction of academic disciplines: engineering was to be learnt from the United Kingdom, mathematics, physics, and international law from France, while politics, economics, and medicine were to be guided by German expertise. Additionally, agriculture and commercial law knowledge was to be sourced from the United States. Following this policy, UTokyo and its predecessor institutions sent their graduates to universities in these respective countries and also invited lecturers from them. However, by the 1880s, the Japanese government grew concerned over the spread of French republican and British constitutional monarchist ideals among the faculty and students, and eventually Minister of Education Takato Oki instructed the university to reduce the use of English as a language of instruction, and instead to switch to Japanese. This shift coincided with the return of UTokyo alumni who had completed their education in Europe, and these returnees began filling roles that had been predominantly held by foreign scholars.
Interwar period
The first half of the Interwar period in Japan was characterised by the spread of liberal ideas, collectively known as Taishō Democracy. This movement was ushered in by the concept of Minpon Shugi by Sakuzō Yoshino, as well as Tatsukichi Minobe's interpretation of sovereignty as inherent to the state rather than the monarchy. Both were alumni and professors at the Faculty of Law. As such ideas were came to be accepted widely, prime minister Takaaki Katō, an alumnus of UTokyo, extended suffrage to all males aged 25 and over in 1925, as promised in his manifesto. This liberal tendency was also shared among students, exemplified by the labour movement organisation the UTokyo Association of New People and the UTokyo Settlement. However, strong reactions against these liberal and socialist ideas also emerged at the university, notably from Shinkichi Uesugi, who mentored and greatly influenced three future prime ministers among his students at UTokyo: Nobusuke Kishi, Eisaku Satō, and Takeo Fukuda.Great Kanto Earthquake
On September 1, 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck the Kanto Plain, inflicting immense damage upon the university. This damage included the complete destruction of almost all main buildings, including the library, as well as the loss of precious scientific and historical samples and data stored in them. This led to a university-wide debate as to whether it should relocate to a larger site, such as Yoyogi, but ultimately, such plans were rejected. Instead, the university purchased additional land in its vicinity, which was still owned by the Maeda family, and expanded there.File:University of Tokyo circa 1953.jpg|thumb|Most of the buildings on the Hongo Campus today were built during the reconstruction period in a style known as Uchida Gothic, including Yasuda Auditorium and the General Library.
The reconstruction of the university and its library was brought up in the fourth general assembly of the League of Nations in September 1923, where it was unanimously decided to provide support. The League is said to have been sympathetic especially because the memory of the destruction of KU Leuven in Belgium during the First World War was still fresh. The American philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. personally donated $2 million. The United Kingdom formed a committee led by former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, and made substantial financial and cultural contributions. Rockefeller Jr. and Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, a younger son of George V, visited the university in 1929, shortly after the new library was completed. Prince Henry's visit marked the first Great Ball in several years, which is now known as the May Festival. A large portion of the buildings on Hongo Campus today were built during this reconstruction period, and their unique Collegiate Gothic style is known as Uchida Gothic after Yoshikazu Uchida, the architect who designed them.
Another notable change the earthquake brought about at the university was the expansion of its seismology studies. Long having been the only university in the seismically active country, the university was already known for its seismology research, most notably the contributions made by its alumnus and professor, Fusakichi Omori, in quantitatively evaluating the aftershocks of earthquakes and developing a new type of seismometer capable of recording primary waves. The university set up an independent seismology department in November 1923 to study the mechanism of earthquakes and to better prepare for future seismic events. In 1925, with a government grant, the Earthquake Research Institute was established within the university, and it has been in continuous operation up to today.
World War II
In 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the American bases at Pearl Harbor and joined World War II as an Axis power alongside Germany. By late 1943, as Japan faced significant defeats in the Pacific theatre, a decision was made to enlist university students studying humanities, sending them to battlefields. During the war, 1,652 students and alumni of UTokyo were killed, including those from varied civilian professions such as doctors, engineers, and diplomats, as well as those killed in action. They are commemorated in a memorial erected near the front gate of the Hongo Campus. Most students studying engineering and science remained at university or worked as apprentice engineers, as the knowledge of science and technology was deemed indispensable for the war effort. Leo Esaki, who was a student at the Department of Physics during the war, shared his memory of his university life in 2007: 'The day after the Tokyo Air Raid of 9 March 1945, during which more than 100 thousand citizens were killed, professor Tanaka conducted class as usual, without mentioning the war at all'. The buildings and facilities of UTokyo were largely immune from air raids, allowing education and research activities to continue.The increased demand brought about by the war for engineers, especially in the fields of aeronautics, machinery, electronics, and shipbuilding, led to the establishment of the Second Faculty of Engineering at UTokyo in 1942. In the newly built Chiba Campus, around 800 students were enrolled at one time, and military engineering research activities were conducted. It was closed in 1951, and as a successor organisation, the Institute of Industrial Science was established on the site of the former headquarters of the Third Infantry Regiment in Roppongi. During the war, the Imperial Army attempted to use the university's facilities several times, including plans to relocate the university to Sendai and use the Hongo Campus as a fortress for the anticipated Allied landing, Operation Downfall, to protect the Imperial Palace. President Yoshikazu Uchida consistently denied these requests by persuading them of the importance of culture, education and research for the country's long-term development. In September 1945, efforts by Uchida and Shigeru Nambara, Dean of the Faculty of Law, prevented the campus from becoming the Allied Headquarters. Instead, the Dai-Ichi Seimei Building was chosen. Nambara succeeded Uchida as president in December 1945.