List of oldest universities in continuous operation
This is a list of the oldest Universities. To be listed on this page, the educational institution must satisfy the definition of university at the time of founding, it must have been founded before 1500, and it must have been operational without a significant interruption ever since.
Most European countries (also China and Egypt) had universities by 1500. After 1500 universities began to spread to other countries all over the world:
The Nalanda University in Bihar, India, near the state capital of Patna is believed to be the oldest known university in the world, founded in the 5th century BCE. In 1193, it was destroyed by a Turkish invader named Bakhtiyar Ud-Din Khilji.
Caveat
The actual date a University started to function is often rather hazy and differs a good deal from legend, or from the date its ancestor-institution was founded. For example, it is generally admitted today that Oxford's foundation can't be precisely dated, but must lie somewhere in the mid-to-late 12th century.
Likewise, hair-splitting is pointless: the notion that a college could be empowered to give the bachelor's degree is a modern American one; by European terms, Harvard College had already adopted the powers (if not the style) of a University in 1642. No doubt it thought of itself as the germinal college of a New Cambridge University or such-like. Pennsylvania was simply the first American institution to call itself a university; but neither it nor Harvard nor any of the four other American colleges at the time was nearly big or diverse enough to be like a true European University. And despite its name, Harvard is in fact presently a university.
