Guangxi University

Guangxi University (广西大学) is a provincial public university in Nanning, Guangxi, China. It is affiliated with the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and co-funded by the regional government and the Ministry of Education. The university is part of Project 211 and the Double First-Class Construction.

The university helped pioneer higher education in central and southwestern China, where its faculty, students, and resources contributed to the creation of over 20 universities and academic departments during the mid 20th century. The university grants bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees across 27 colleges and departments and 98 undergraduate majors.

Established in 1928, the university was broken up during national education reforms in the 1950s. Its departments were relocated across China to create or bolster numerous other institutions including then Wuhan University, then Sun Yat-sen University, and then Guangxi Normal University.

As early as 1925, the Guangxi provincial government began drafting plans to create Guangxi University. In the winter of 1927, the authorities invited scientist and educator Ma Junwu, a native of Guilin, Guangxi, to return to his homeland and help found the first modern university in the province. In October 1928, Guangxi University was established on Butterfly Mountain in the Hexi District of Wuzhou.

University operations were briefly suspended from 1929 to 1931 due to armed conflict in Guangxi and the neighboring Guizhou region.

In 1932, the provincial government established the Guangxi Provincial Teacher's College, an independent normal school in Guilin, Guangxi. However, in 1936, the government reorganized institutions of higher education. The Teacher's College was ordered to merge into Guangxi University, where it became part of the colleges of literature and law. The university also absorbed the Guangxi Provincial Medical College which became the Guangxi University School of Medicine. However, the authorities separated the university from its science and engineering faculties, which consolidated and became the independent Guangxi University of Science and Technology. Through these acquisitions and divestments, Guangxi University influenced the development of many institutions of higher education across Guangxi, a role it would retain during the education reorganization of the 1950s.

In 1936 Guangxi University relocated to a campus in the city of Guilin. There, the university established an Institute of Botany, several agricultural research facilities, and its Economic Research Institute.

In 1939, the Nationalist government expanded the university, adding several faculties including engineering and agriculture. As a result, the university was renamed National Guangxi University. The 40s and 50s would prove to be a difficult period of "great contributions and sacrifices" made by the newly named university, while also establishing its modern identity and impact as a contributor to the effort to establish higher education in central and southwestern China.