The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Beijing University
or Peking University, at Beijing, China; founded as Metropolitan Univ. 1898, renamed Peking Univ. 1911, absorbed nontechnical departments of Qinghua (Tsinghua) Univ. and merged with and moved to the campus of Yanjing (Yenching) Univ. 1952. Divided into six colleges, it is China’s foremost liberal arts university and has a large mathematics and science faculty as well. Some 80 research institutes and centers are affiliated with the university. The university library, the largest such library in China, contains over 4 million volumes, including more than a million thread-bound Chinese books. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the university relocated to Kunming, Yunnan, and with Tsinghua and Nankai universities formed the National Southwestern Associated Univ. From 1966 to 1970, during the height of the Cultural Revolution, Beijing Univ. was closed.
