This article is about Eötvös Loránd University, which is often referred to as University of Budapest. If you are looking for another university in Budapest, see the page List of universities in Budapest.

The University of Budapest or ELTE is the oldest and biggest university in Hungary, located in Budapest.

In 1950 it was renamed Eötvös Loránd University, in Hungarian Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem after physicist Roland Eötvös. In Latin Universitas Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös nominata. – Before 1950, it was named Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetem (not to be confused with Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem , a separate university).

History

It was founded in 1635 in Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia) by the archbishop and theologian Péter Pázmány , who left its leadership to the Jesuits, containing a Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Theology. A Faculty of Law was added in 1667, and a Faculty of Medicine was started in 1769. After the dissolution of the Jesuit order, the university was moved to Buda (a part of Budapest today) in 1777, in accordance with the intention of the founder. The university received its final location in Pest (the other side of today's Budapest) in 1784. The language of education was Latin until 1844, when Hungarian was introduced as an official language. Women have been allowed to enrol since 1895. Its Faculty of Science started its separate life in 1949.

Among its students were George de Hevesy, Philipp Lenard, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Georg von Békésy, John Harsanyi (winners of the Nobel Prize), John von Neumann and Lajos Kossuth. -- Today it has 8 faculties and more than 30.000 students. According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities by Sanghai University (2003), it was qualified as the second best university in Hungary (401st in the complete list, in tie), after the University of Szeged (201st in tie).

External Links

• Eötvös Loránd University (faculties are available here)
• ELTE Faculty of Sciences (description in English)
• Its full history in Hungarian
• Academic Ranking of World Universities - 2003