Founded in 1898, Peking University (Beida) is the first national university in Chinese modern history. It is known today as the "Harvard of China" and enjoys the highest academic reputation.

Under the famous President Cai Yuanpei in the 1910s, Peking University became an intellectual center of China and practically all top notch intellectuals either taught or studied at this institution. In the New Culture movement, the popular slogans like "Science and Democracy" still ring across China today. As a hotbed of radicalism, the two founders of Chinese Communist Party, for example, were Beida's Librarian and Dean of Letters. The same can be said of leading figures of other intellectual thought.

Beida has also been the most inspiring center of student activism. The well-known May 4th Movement started here and so were all major student protest movements in the 20th century, including the most recent one of 1989. Beida's professors are among the most free thinking in China and its tradition instills a sense of pride and responsibility in their students who are only too conscious of the university's place in the nation. For the past hundred years, Beida remains the most selective university in China. Its students are all top scorers in the national college entrance exams in each province.

The university now consists of five parts: Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences, Medicine, and Information and Engineering, and there are 30 schools and colleges offering 93 undergraduate programs, 199 postgraduate programs, and 173 doctoral programs

The university library is the largest of its kind in Asia, with a collection of 5.51 million books and more than 6,500 titles of Chinese and foreign journals and newspapers. The library also serves as a comprehensive modern information center.

The university has around 5,000 full-time teaching faculty, of whom about 1,200 are professors and over 1,500 are associate professors. There are over 14,000 undergraduates, over 8,000 graduates and about 4,000 doctoral candidates. In addition, there are also on campus about 1,500 long-term international students and over 2,500 short-term international students from 80 countries.

Besides its excellent academic achievements, Peking University is also known for its beautiful campus, constructed in part by Yenching University, an American missionary school before 1949. Located at the northwest of Beijing, the campus has charming lakes and ponds, exquisite traditional-style buildings, and a well-designed pagoda which has been regarded as a landmark of Beida. The beauty of Beida's campus has a rival on in its own reputation.