University of Tokyo
national university in Tokyo, Japan
The University of Tokyo (東京大学, Tōkyō daigaku, abbreviated as Tōdai (東大) in Japanese and UTokyo in English) 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.
The university consists of 10 faculties, 15 graduate schools, and 11 affiliated research institutes. As of 2023, it has 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 land holdings amount to 326 square kilometres (approximately 80,586 acres or 32,600 hectares), 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.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “University of Tokyo” is national university in Tokyo, Japan. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through University, Tokyo and national, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “national university in Tokyo, Japan” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7842. VIAF identifies the subject as 139113954. The Library of Congress control number is n79072779. Authority coordinates are 35.713, 139.762. 3 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1684, 2023 and 2025.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “University of Tokyo”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow University of Tokyo primary sources, University of Tokyo archive and University research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “University of Tokyo”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “University of Tokyo” 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.