There are few cities in the world like Oxford. Once the seat of kings, it has been a scholarly community for almost 900 years. Today, it continues to be one of the most important intellectual and cultural centers in the world.

Founded in the Dark Ages, Oxford had acquired a reputation as a gathering place for scholars by the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. The first of the Oxford colleges was founded in the mid-1200s and today Oxford University enrolls over 16,500 students in 35 colleges.

Oxford and its University have nurtured many famous figures who have shaped English culture and society. No fewer than 23 Prime Ministers are alumni, including Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Oxford has also been home to great writers and thinkers like John Locke, Percy Bysshe Shelley, J.R.R. Tolkien, W.H. Auden, and Oscar Wilde, as well as renowned scientists, Edmond Halley, the former Astronomer Royal, and Albert Einstein.

Oxford is a city of legend and achievement – a city in which our students sense that history lives in every building, in every monument, and on every street. They rapidly come to feel, as John Keats did, that Oxford is “the finest city in the world.”