University of Dhaka

The University of Dhaka is a public university in Shahbag, Dhaka, and the oldest active university in Bangladesh. It opened in 1921 and today runs a very large teaching and research system across the capital.

Rankings

• QS World University Rankings 2027: =600, the highest of any Bangladeshi university in that table (national rank 1). The 2026 edition placed it 584th.
• QS Asia University Rankings 2026: 132, national rank 1.
• THE World University Rankings 2027: band 1001-1200. The 2026 edition had it in 801-1000.
• THE Asia University Rankings 2026: band 301-350, national rank 1.
• Webometrics 2024: world rank 1144, national rank 1.
• Ulkaa Edu Rank 2027: position 2 in Bangladesh with a score of 94.5. For positions 1 to 14 the position reflects Ulkaa's admission competitiveness assessment, which weighs applicants per seat, intake, research, faculty and other published indicators.

Public figures from the 2023 data year list 2,418 teachers, 1,145 of them with a PhD.

The university was founded under the Dacca University Act of 1920 and began teaching on 1 July 1921 with 847 students in the faculties of Arts, Science and Law. Curzon Hall, an early institute of the university, still stands on the campus.

The institution is based in Shahbag. Landmarks listed for the campus are Curzon Hall, the Teacher-Student Centre, the Shahid Minar and Fuller Road. Enrolment has grown from those 847 first students to more than 35,000 in the 2023 data year, which gives a sense of how far the university has expanded since its opening decade.

Admission is competitive and based on the university's own admission test. In the 2025 data year there were 284,216 applications for 6,125 seats, which is about 46.4 applicants per seat. The 2024 ratio was 55 and the 2023 ratio was 46.8.

Seat numbers and unit-wise rules change each year, so read the official admission circular before planning. Applicants usually need a recent HSC or equivalent result and must register online within the announced dates.

If you are comparing options, note that the intake in 2023 was 13,712 first-year students, so many places are spread across the faculties and institutes, each with its own requirements.

Dhaka University is organised into 13 faculties and 83 departments, together with 11 institutes and 6 research centres, according to its Wikipedia entry. Teaching covers the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, business, law, medicine, engineering and pharmacy.

Ulkaa currently lists 13 undergraduate programmes drawn from the university's department and institute pages:

• Business: Department of Management and the Institute of Business Administration
• Computing: Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Institute of Information Technology
• Engineering and science: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mathematics, Microbiology and Physics
• Social science and humanities: Economics, English and Law
• Pharmacy: the Department of Pharmacy and the B.Pharm programme

This is a partial list of a much wider catalogue, so check the official department pages for the full set of subjects and master's and PhD options.

On accreditation, the Pharmacy Council register held one entry for the university in 2026.

Research output is large in absolute terms. OpenAlex records 15,339 works over the five years to 2025, and 3,576 works in 2025 alone. Citations per work over five years were 9.10 in 2025, down from 12.27 in 2024 and 14.19 in 2023.

About 33 percent of 2025 works had an international co-author, and the OpenAlex h-index stood at 303 in 2026.

QS subject tables for 2026 placed Dhaka first among Bangladeshi universities in several areas: accounting and finance (301-375), biological sciences (651-700), chemistry (551-600), economics and econometrics (301-350), environmental sciences (401-450), medicine (501-550) and physics and astronomy (501-550).

The main campus covers about 275 acres in central Dhaka. The university reports 23 residence halls for students and four hostels for women, among them Salimullah Muslim Hall, Jagannath Hall and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hall.

The Teacher-Student Centre is the usual meeting point for societies, debates and cultural events, and the Shahid Minar is another landmark on the campus.

On size, the data we hold shows 35,696 students in the 2023 data year, with 13,712 first-year admissions that year. A student here learns in a crowded, city-centre environment, close to museums, libraries and the other Dhaka universities.