The University of Havana (UH; Spanish: Universidad de La Habana) is a public university located in the Vedado district of Havana, the capital of Cuba. Founded on 5 January 1728, the university is the oldest in Cuba, and one of the first to be founded in the Americas. Originally a religious institution, today the university has 15 faculties (colleges) at its Havana campus and distance learning centers throughout Cuba.

Founded in 1728 by Dominican friars belonging to the Order of Preachers (la Orden de Predicadores) as Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo de la Habana (Royal and Pontifical University of Saint Jerome of Havana) with six original faculties: Art and Philosophy, Theology, Canons, Law, and Medicine.^{[citation needed]}

In 1842, the university changed its status to become a secular, royal and literary institution. Its name became Real y Literaria Universidad de La Habana (Royal and Literary University of Havana) and later, when Cuba was a free republic, the name was changed to Universidad Nacional (National University).

The university had first been established in San Juan de Letrán (located in Villa de San Cristóbal in Old Havana) before it was transferred on 1 May 1902, to a hill in the Vedado area of Havana. The interiors of the building were decorated by Armando Menocal y Menocal. The seven frescos represent Medicine, Science, Art, Thought, Liberal Arts, Literature, and Law. At the main university entrance (shown above) there is a bronze statue of Alma Mater (meaning the "Nourishing mother" in Latin) that was created in 1919 by artist Mario Korbel, who based his design off of Alma Mater, the Daniel Chester French statue at Columbia University in New York City. The model for the statue's face was 16-year-old Feliciana "Chana" Villalón, the daughter of José Ramón Villalón y Sánchez, a professor of analytical mathematics at the university. Chana later married Juan Manuel Menocal (a distant relative of Armando Menocal), who went on to become the Dean of the Business School. Juan Manuel Menocal was a professor at the law school when Fidel Castro was a student there in the 1940s. Maria Rosa Menocal, former Director of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale, was the granddaughter of Chana and Juan Manuel Menocal. (See Alma Mater Witness of Time by Eduardo Heras León).

The main library "Rubén Martínez Villena" was established later in 1936.

After the government was taken over by Fulgencio Batista in 1952, the university became a center of anti-government protests. Batista closed the university in 1956. From 1 January 1959, the date on which Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, until 1 January 1962, the university went through a period of reformation to eliminate "anti-revolutionary ideas".

In 2002, Rutgers University–Camden and the University of Havana signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to formalize research and exchange opportunities for students and faculty.

The MOU was re-signed in October 2016 with the addition of encompassing all of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.