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'Prestigious' universities in China: which labels are official lists and which are not

Sources checked · Unofficial summary

When people call a Chinese university "prestigious", the official documents they might mean are four lists: the national list of higher education institutions, the Project 985 school list, the Project 211 school list and the second-round Double First-Class list. Each is a separate document with its own publisher and date, and each prints different content. This guide describes what each one prints, so that a reader can see which label comes from which document. This directory's section page explains how the directory uses these lists.

This is a reference guide for people looking up universities in mainland China. This website is not a government or university website, and it accepts no applications. The official lists are in Chinese. The English in this article is this site's translation of the Chinese text, and institution names are given as printed in Chinese.

The four documents at a glance

Document Publisher Date What it prints
National list of higher education institutions (全国高等学校名单) Ministry of Education Position as of 17 June 2026 Totals by type on the page; attachment 1 lists regular institutions in seven columns
"Project 985" school list (“985工程”学校名单) Ministry of Education, Department of Degree Management and Postgraduate Education Page header dated 6 December 2006 A header table and a list of 39 names (counted from the list)
"Project 211" school list (“211工程”学校名单) Ministry of Education, Department of Degree Management and Postgraduate Education Page header dated 23 December 2005 A header table and a list of 112 names (counted from the list)
Second-round Double First-Class list (annex 1 to 教研函〔2022〕1号) Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, National Development and Reform Commission Notice dated 9 February 2022 147 institutions (counted from the entries); 2 with no disciplines printed

The national list totals are printed by the Ministry. The other counts in this table are this site's counts from the printed lists, and the Ministry prints no total for them.

Project 985 and Project 211

The Project 985 page is titled “985工程”学校名单 in its header. Its header gives the generation date (生成日期) as 6 December 2006, the publisher as the Ministry of Education's Department of Degree Management and Postgraduate Education, and the index number as 360A22-07-2006-0655-1. The content overview says the list covers institutions approved for construction by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance. The document-number field (发文字号) in the header is blank. The page itself prints no total; counting the names in the list gives 39.

The Project 211 page is titled “211工程”学校名单 in its header. Its header gives the generation date as 23 December 2005, the same publishing department, and the index number 360A22-07-2005-0039-1. The content overview says the list covers institutions approved for construction by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance. The document-number field in its header is also blank. The page itself prints no total; counting the names in the list gives 112.

The two pages are separate documents with separate years, so this guide reports each one with its own date.

The second-round Double First-Class list

The notice is titled 教育部 财政部 国家发展改革委关于公布第二轮“双一流”建设高校及建设学科名单的通知 (教研函〔2022〕1号), and it is dated 9 February 2022. It was issued by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission. Its first paragraph says the list of universities and construction disciplines is annex 1. It also says annex 2 names first-round construction disciplines given public warning, including revocation. This guide names no discipline from annex 2.

The second paragraph of the notice says that 北京大学 and 清华大学 determined their construction disciplines themselves and published them separately.

Annex 1 is titled 第二轮“双一流”建设高校及建设学科名单（按学校代码排序）, which means the list is ordered by school code. Counting the entries of the annex gives these figures: 147 institutions; 2 institutions with no disciplines printed; 433 discipline entries across the institutions that have disciplines printed; and 97 different discipline names. These are counts of what the list contains. They are not a score of quality.

The Ministry's press Q&A of 14 February 2022 answers two questions about this list.

  • In question 9, the Ministry's official says that identification of the construction scope takes the strengthening of Party leadership and the quality of talent training as a basic threshold. The answer says identification is not linked to university or discipline rankings or to paper indicators. For evaluation, the answer says the Ministry does not simply use paper counts, changes in rankings or the number of talent titles (帽子) as indicators.
  • In question 10, the Ministry's official says the second-round list does not distinguish between universities for first-class university construction and universities for first-class discipline construction.

The national list

The national list page gives the position as of 17 June 2026. It prints 3,196 higher education institutions in total. Of these, 2,952 are regular institutions, including 1,412 undergraduate institutions and 1,540 vocational (junior college) institutions. It prints 244 adult institutions. The page says the list does not include institutions in Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan.

Attachment 1 is titled 全国普通高等学校名单 (as of 17 June 2026). Its seven columns are:

  • serial number (序号)
  • school name (学校名称)
  • school identification code (学校标识码)
  • administering body (主管部门)
  • location (所在地)
  • level of schooling (办学层次)
  • remark (备注)

The column headings of attachment 1 do not include a Project 985, Project 211 or Double First-Class column. This guide does not reproduce the rows of attachment 1.

How to check a name

  1. Open annex 1 of the second-round notice from the link in Sources.
  2. Search the annex for the university's Chinese name.
  3. Read the disciplines printed beside the name.
  4. Open the national list page from the link in Sources.
  5. Open attachment 1 and find the name in the school name column.

Confirm every name against the current official list before you use it.

Being on any of these lists does not show that a university enrols international students in any programme. For admission details, read the university's own admission prospectus.

Questions people ask

Does the Double First-Class list put universities in order of quality?

The annex is titled as ordered by school code (按学校代码排序), so its printed order is the order of school codes. In question 9 of the Ministry's press Q&A of 14 February 2022, the Ministry's official says identification of the construction scope is not linked to university or discipline rankings or to paper indicators.

Does the second-round list separate universities into two kinds?

In question 10 of the Ministry's press Q&A of 14 February 2022, the Ministry's official says the second-round list does not distinguish between universities for first-class university construction and universities for first-class discipline construction.

What does the Project 985 page print?

The Project 985 page prints a header table and a list of names. The header gives the title, the index number 360A22-07-2006-0655-1, the generation date 6 December 2006, the publisher and the content overview. Counting the names in the list gives 39.

Does the national list show which schools are in Project 985, Project 211 or the Double First-Class list?

The seven column headings of attachment 1 to the national list are serial number, school name, school identification code, administering body, location, level of schooling and remark. The column headings do not include a Project 985, Project 211 or Double First-Class column.

Sources

Checked 11 October 2026.

This page is an unofficial summary, is not published by the Ministry of Education or any university, promises no admission outcome, and the official Chinese text and the current official list prevail if they differ.

Directory Desk