Year of foundation: 1811
Approx. number of students: 26,000
Period of study: Mid August-Mid December; Early January-Mid June
MCI partner since: 2010
The City
Oslo is the capital and largest city in Norway. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by a fire in 1624. The Danish-Norwegian king Christian IV rebuilt the city as Christiania (briefly also spelled Kristiania). In 1925 the city reclaimed its original Norwegian name; Oslo.
Oslo is the cultural, scientific, economic and governmental center of Norway. The city is also a hub of Norwegian trade, banking, industry and shipping. It is also an important center for maritime industries and maritime trade in Europe. The city is home to many companies within the maritime sector, some of them are amongst the world's largest shipping companies, shipbrokers and maritime insurance brokers.As of 2009, the metropolitan area of Oslo has a population of 1.4 million of whom 876,391 lives in the contiguous conurbation.
The University
The University of Oslo is the oldest, largest and most prestigious university in Norway. It was founded in 1811 as The Royal Frederick University.
The university has faculties of (Lutheran) Theology, Law, Medicine, Humanities, Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Dentistry, Social Sciences, and Education. The Faculty of Law is still located at the old campus on Karl Johans gate, near the National Theatre, the Royal Palace, and the Parliament, while most of the other faculties are located at a modern campus area called Blindern, erected from the 1930s. The Faculty of Medicine is split between several university hospitals in the Oslo area. Currently the university has about 27,000 students and employs about 4,600 people. It is considered one of the leading universities of Scandinavia, and is consistently ranked among the world's top 100 or top 200 universities. In 2007 the University of Oslo was ranked as the best university in Norway, the 19th best in Europe and 69th best in the world in the Academic Ranking of World Universities. Also, in 2005 its faculty of humanities was ranked as the best in the Nordic countries, the 5th best in Europe and the 16th best in the world by the Times Higher Education Supplement. In 2009, the university was ranked as the 101st best in the world by Times Higher Education.