THE Releases 2026 'The Most International Universities in the World' List

This graphic invites its publication for the records, both for the developing and the more materially developed parts of the world, given the primacy of universities in the generation of the ideas that define how the world works. It has been reproduced from as released yesterday (March 17^th, 2026) by Times Higher Education (THE).

Most Intervention readers would find it interesting that, once again, the University of Cape Town in South Africa and the University of Cairo in Egypt made the list, with Cape Town making it earlier than many top American universities.

Most international rank 2026	Most international rank 2025	University	Country/region
1	1	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
2	2	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
3	4	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
4	7	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
=5	5	Abu Dhabi University	United Arab Emirates
=5	6	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
7	8	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
8	9	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
9	10	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
10	=12	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
11	=12	King’s College London	United Kingdom
12	=18	National University of Singapore	Singapore
13	=14	UCL	United Kingdom
=14	11	The Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=14	17	University of Vienna	Austria
16	=14	London School of Economics and Political Science	United Kingdom
17	NR	University of Geneva	Switzerland
18	=14	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
19	=18	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
20	=20	Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
21	23	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
=22	22	Australian National University	Australia
=22	=20	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
24	=35	Trinity College Dublin	Ireland
=25	NR	KTH Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
=25	30	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
27	=35	University of Toronto	Canada
28	27	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
29	=28	University of Melbourne	Australia
30	=24	UNSW Sydney	Australia
31	=31	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
32	26	University of British Columbia	Canada
=33	38	Durham University	United Kingdom
=33	=33	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
35	42	Institut Polytechnique de Paris	France
36	=33	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
37	=40	University of St Andrews	United Kingdom
38	=31	Monash University	Australia
39	=24	The University of Queensland	Australia
40	44	University of Auckland	New Zealand
41	37	The University of Sydney	Australia
42	=28	University of Groningen	Netherlands
43	39	McGill University	Canada
44	=40	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
45	45	Harvard University	United States
46	NR	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
47	43	Leiden University	Netherlands
48	NR	TU Wien	Austria
49	46	University of Alberta	Canada
50	49	California Institute of Technology	United States
51	=80	Lebanese American University	Lebanon
52	47	University of York	United Kingdom
53	51	Aalto University	Finland
54	=53	Stanford University	United States
55	48	Karolinska Institute	Sweden
56	52	Princeton University	United States
57	=66	University of Malaya	Malaysia
58	56	KU Leuven	Belgium
59	50	King Khalid University	Saudi Arabia
60	=63	Technical University of Munich	Germany
61	=63	Lund University	Sweden
62	=53	University of California, Berkeley	United States
63	78	Lebanese University	Lebanon
64	=60	Free University of Berlin	Germany
65	=57	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
=66	79	Universität Heidelberg	Germany
=66	69	Yale University	United States
68	=63	Columbia University	United States
=69	59	Aarhus University	Denmark
=69	68	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
71	62	Cornell University	United States
72	=66	University of Oslo	Norway
=73	82	Humboldt University of Berlin	Germany
=73	=60	University of Cape Town	South Africa
75	71	Sorbonne University	France
76	70	Johns Hopkins University	United States
77	75	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
78	89	LMU Munich	Germany
79	84	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
80	76	Uppsala University	Sweden
=81	73	Rice University	United States
=81	110	University of Freiburg	Germany
83	=80	The University of Chicago	United States
84	88	University of California, Davis	United States
85	=85	University of Pennsylvania	United States
86	72	University of Massachusetts	United States
87	77	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
88	83	Technion Israel Institute of Technology	Israel
=89	91	Purdue University West Lafayette	United States
=89	=101	University of Tübingen	Germany
91	94	University of California, Irvine	United States
=92	111	Ghent University	Belgium
=92	87	University of Rochester	United States
94	=101	University of Bonn	Germany
95	98	Université Paris-Saclay	France
96	97	Technical University of Berlin	Germany
97	92	New York University	United States
98	90	Boston University	United States
99	=104	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany
100	=99	University of Göttingen	Germany
101	=104	Norwegian University of Science and Technology	Norway
102	112	RWTH Aachen University	Germany
103	=117	Politecnico di Milano	Italy
104	=107	Duke University	United States
105	109	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)	Spain
106	114	Université Paris Cité	France
107	=104	University of Southern California	United States
108	95	University of Toulouse	France
109	=99	Stony Brook University	United States
110	116	Charles University	Czechia
111	113	University of California, Santa Cruz	United States
112	=107	University of California, San Diego	United States
113	=121	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
114	=101	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
=115	129	Northwestern University	United States
=115	125	Université Grenoble Alpes	France
117	=121	University of Hamburg	Germany
=118	128	TU Dresden	Germany
=118	127	University of Helsinki	Finland
120	124	Michigan State University	United States
121	119	University of Barcelona	Spain
122	130	Texas A&M University	United States
123	123	Washington University in St Louis	United States
124	131	Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States
125	126	University of Washington	United States
126	115	Brown University	United States
=127	136	University of Bologna	Italy
=127	120	University of Notre Dame	United States
129	=117	Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University	Saudi Arabia
130	=140	École Normale Supérieure de Lyon	France
131	NR	Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile	Chile
132	132	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
134	=133	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
135	159	National Taiwan University (NTU)	Taiwan
136	=137	University of Porto	Portugal
137	156	Korea University	South Korea
=138	139	Emory University	United States
=138	=137	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	United States
140	143	North Carolina State University	United States
141	=133	Tel Aviv University	Israel
142	135	National Autonomous University of Mexico	Mexico
143	=140	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
145	145	Indiana University	United States
146	158	Dartmouth College	United States
=147	147	Peking University	China
=147	152	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
149	=154	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
150	153	University of Münster	Germany
151	NR	Autonomous University of Madrid	Spain
152	150	Vanderbilt University	United States
153	149	University of Padua	Italy
154	186	Yonsei University (Seoul campus)	South Korea
156	157	University of Arizona	United States
157	=160	University of Virginia (Main campus)	United States
158	165	Middle East Technical University	Turkey
160	=154	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
161	164	The University of Tokyo	Japan
162	146	Tongji University	China
163	163	Georgetown University	United States
164	168	Sapienza University of Rome	Italy
165	NR	University of Granada	Spain
166	167	Complutense University of Madrid	Spain
=167	177	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
=169	162	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel
=169	170	University of Iowa	United States
171	171	Tohoku University	Japan
172	172	University of Florida	United States
173	178	University of Warsaw	Poland
174	=174	University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh campus	United States
=175	181	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
=175	176	Waseda University	Japan
177	184	Chulalongkorn University	Thailand
=178	173	Nanjing University	China
=178	179	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
180	180	University of Texas at Austin	United States
181	195	Tsinghua University	China
182	187	Cairo University	Egypt
183	=174	Zhejiang University	China
=184	=192	Fudan University	China
=184	182	University of Minnesota	United States
=186	=198	University of São Paulo	Brazil
=186	=192	University of Tsukuba	Japan
188	196	University of Utah	United States
189	183	Tianjin University	China
=190	185	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea
=190	189	Seoul National University	South Korea
192	188	The University of Osaka	Japan
193	=190	Kyoto University	Japan
194	=198	Kyushu University	Japan
196	201	Hokkaido University	Japan
198	206	Nagoya University	Japan
199	207	Southeast University	China
200	203	Nankai University	China
201	209	University of Campinas	Brazil
202	211	Keio University	Japan
=203	202	Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	South Korea
=203	205	Sichuan University	China
205	210	Wuhan University	China
206	194	Beijing Normal University	China
207	NR	Federal University of Rio de Janeiro	Brazil
208	208	University of Science and Technology of China	China
209	216	Xi’an Jiaotong University	China
210	NR	Xiamen University	China
211	NR	University of Tehran	Iran
212	NR	Sharif University of Technology	Iran
213	212	Sun Yat-sen University	China
214	214	Indian Institute of Science	India
215	215	Beihang University	China
216	213	Harbin Institute of Technology	China
217	217	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China