National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
university in Athens, Greece
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; Greek: Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, Ethnikó kai Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón), simply referred to as the University of Athens (UoA), is a public university in Athens, Greece, with various campuses along the Athens agglomeration.
It has been in continuous operation since its establishment in 1837 and is the oldest higher education institution of the modern Greek state and the first contemporary university in both the Balkan Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean. Today it is one of the largest universities by enrollment in Europe, with over 69,000 registered students.
History
Founding and expansion
The University of Athens was founded on 3 May 1837 by King Otto of Greece (in Greek, Óthon) and was named in his honour Othonian University (Οθώνειον Πανεπιστήμιον). It was the first university in the liberated Greek state and in the surrounding area of Southeast Europe as well. It was also the second academic institution after the Ionian Academy. This fledgling university consisted of four faculties; Theology, Law, Medicine, and Arts (which included applied sciences and mathematics). During its first year of operation, the institution was staffed by 33 professors, while courses were attended by 52 students and 75 non-matriculated "auditors".
It was first housed in the residence of architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert, on the north slope of the Acropolis, in Plaka, which now houses the Athens University History Museum. In November 1841, the university relocated to the Main Building of the University of Athens, a building designed by Danish architect Christian Hansen.
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This entry incorporates text from “National and Kapodistrian University of Athens” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.