A university is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research, which awards academic degrees in various academic disciplines. Universities typically provide undergraduate education and postgraduate education. The term was coined by the Italian University of Bologna, which, with a traditional founding date of 1088, is considered to be the first university.
The origin of many medieval universities can be traced back to the Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools, which appeared as early as the 6th century and were run for hundreds of years as such before their formal establishment as universities in the high medieval period. Inclusion in this list is determined by the date at which the educational institute met the traditional definition of a university although it may have existed as a different kind of institute before that time.
This definition limits the term “university” to institutions with distinctive structural and legal features that developed in Europe, and which make the university form different from other institutions of higher learning in the pre-modern world. For the list below, the university must still be in operation, with institutional continuity retained throughout its history, and so some early universities, are excluded.
Other institutions of higher learning, such as those of ancient Greece, ancient Persia, ancient Rome, Byzantium, ancient China, ancient India and the Islamic world, are not included in this list owing to their cultural, historical, structural and juristic dissimilarities from the medieval European university from which the modern university evolved.
Here are the top 20 oldest existing universities in continuous operation in the world.
| Rank | University | Location | Year established |
| 1. | University of Bologna | Bologna, Italy | 1088 |
| 2. | University of Oxford | Oxford, England | 1096 |
| 3. | University of Salamanca | Salamanca, Spain | 1134 |
| 4. | University of Cambridge | Cambridge, United Kingdom | 1209 |
| 5. | University of Padua | Padua, Italy | 1222 |
| 6. | University of Naples Federico II | Naples, Italy | 1224 |
| 7. | University of Siena | Siena, Italy | 1240 |
| 8. | University of Coimbra | Coimbra, Portugal | 1290 |
| 9. | University of Macerata | Macerata, Italy | 1290 |
| 10. | University of Valladolid | Valladolid, Spain | 1293 |
| 11. | Complutense University of Madrid | Madrid, Spain | 1293 |
| 12. | Sapienza University of Rome | Rome, Italy | 1303 |
| 13. | University of Perugia | Perugia, Italy | 1308 |
| 14. | University of Florence | Florence, Italy | 1321 |
| 15. | University of Pisa | Pisa, Italy | 1343 |
| 16. | Charles University | Prague, Czech Republic | 1348 |
| 17. | University of Pavia | Pavia, Italy | 1361 |
| 18. | Jagiellonian University | Kraków, Poland | 1364 |
| 19. | University of Vienna | Vienna, Austria | 1365 |
| 20. | University of Heidelberg | Heidelberg, Germany | 1386 |
I do not understand one thing, I agree that the oldest on your list is the University of Bologna, but you have forgotten one detail since you have made a ranking on a global scale that: the University of Morocco which is built by Mrs. Fatima Bint Muhammad Al-Fihri Al-Qurashi in the 859s. Thay keeps in the archives over 4000 ancient books, from which European scientists (such as Pope Silvester II) and world thus supplying worldly knowledge … Al-Karaouine University is also the first scientific institution to invent specialized scientific chairs and degrees in the world.
The University of Morocco doesn’t even exist.