The were founded by the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent for ...

between 1886 and 1939, seven in Mainland Japan (now Japan), one in

Korea under Japanese rule Between 1910 and 1945, Korea was ruled as a part of the Empire of Japan. Joseon Korea had come into the Japanese sphere of influence with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876; a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business o ...

(now the

Republic of Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its ea ...

) and one in

Taiwan under Japanese rule The island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu Islands, became a dependency of Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. The ...

(now

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...

). They were run by the imperial government until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Today, the Imperial Universities are often described as the , and are viewed as some of the most prestigious in Japan. These former imperial universities are generally perceived as Japan's equivalent of the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schoo ...

in the United States, Golden Triangle in the United Kingdom, and the C9 League in China. The alumni club of these nine imperial universities is . Unlike Taihoku Imperial University (renamed in 1945 to National Taiwan University) in then-Japanese Taiwan, the Keijō Imperial University in then-Japanese Korea was closed by the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) with U.S. Military Ordinance No. 102.

Seoul National University Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a national public research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is largely considered the most prestigious university in South Korea; it is one of the thr ...

was built by merging nine schools in Seoul and the remaining properties of Keijō Imperial University (Kyŏngsŏng University). The National Taiwan University and Seoul National University are today among the most prestigious universities of Taiwan and Korea.

Members

History

Athletic competition

The athletic competition started among these seven schools in Japan under the sponsorship of Hokkaido University, formerly known as in 1962. Its name was later recoined as in 2002. The competition is commonly called the or the .Long-awaited overall victory in Nanadai-sen
(University of Tokyo)

References

{{National_Seven_Universities Japanese national universities Lists of universities and colleges in Japan College and university associations and consortia in Asia

Members

History

Athletic competition

See also

References