National Cheng Kung University (NCKU; ) is a national public research university in Tainan, Taiwan. Founded in 1931 during Japanese rule as a technical and engineering college, it primarily teaches and conducts research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Cheng Kung is organized into nine colleges which host undergraduate and graduate programs in 70 departments and 29 research institutes. In addition to its main campus in East District, Tainan, the university also operates National Cheng Kung University Hospital in North District, Tainan, and a satellite campus in Douliu. Most of its more than 11,000 undergraduates and 10,000 graduate students are enrolled in engineering, science, medicine, and design programs.
The university is a founding member of the Taiwan Comprehensive University System and the only Taiwanese member of the Worldwide Universities Network. Notable graduates include the current president of the Republic of China; a Nobel Prize laureate; a premier of the Republic of China; a president of the Control Yuan; presidents of Apple Daily, China Motor Corporation, and TSMC; and members of Academia Sinica.
History
Japanese colonial period, 1931–1945 National Cheng Kung University was established in January 1931 as the Tainan Technical College (; pinyin: Táinán Gāoděng Gōngyè Xuéxiào) under the Government-General of Taiwan during Japanese rule. Its founding accompanied increasing industrialization after World War I, which created demand for technically-trained personnel for colonial industrial development and Japan's economic expansion toward Southeast Asia. The decision followed nearly a decade of debate over higher vocational education in southern Taiwan, culminating in the replacement of the existing Tainan Higher Commercial School with an engineering school.
The college initially offered instruction in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and applied chemistry, and became the principal institution for advanced industrial education in colonial Taiwan. The student body prioritized Japanese enrollment, with only a minority of enrolled Taiwanese students. The institution expanded during the wartime industrialization of the 1930s and 1940s, adding programs in electrochemistry, civil engineering, and architecture before the end of Japanese rule in 1945.
Postwar era, 1945–1971
After World War II and the Retrocession of Taiwan, the school came under the administration of the Kuomintang government and was reorganized in 1946 as the Taiwan Provincial College of Engineering, with six engineering departments. Beginning in 1952, the college received American technical assistance through the Purdue–Formosa Project, a partnership with Purdue University funded as part of a U.S. aid program to Taiwan. Purdue faculty, including engineers Lillian Moller Gilbreth and R. Norris Shreve, participated in the project.
During the Taiwan Miracle, the college expanded beyond its original engineering curriculum, adding programs in management, transportation, and the sciences during the 1950s. In 1956, it became Taiwan Provincial Cheng Kung University, with new colleges of Liberal Arts and Science and Business alongside the existing College of Engineering. Graduate education developed concurrently, beginning with a master's program in mechanical engineering in 1957 and the university's first doctoral program, in electrical engineering, in 1967. The College of Liberal Arts and Science was divided into separate colleges in 1969. National university, 1971–present The institution was reorganized under its present name, National Cheng Kung University, in 1971. Engineering and applied science remained the primary academic focus of the university in following decades. The College of Medicine was established in 1983 and National Cheng Kung University Hospital completed construction in 1988.
The College of Social Sciences was founded in 1997, followed by the colleges of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Planning and Design in 2003, and the College of Bioscience and Biotechnology in 2005. In 2020, the university opened the Miin Wu School of Computing, focusing on computing and artificial intelligence.
Campuses
NCKU's main campus occupies approximately in the East District of Tainan, immediately east of Tainan railway station. It consists of eight contiguous precincts—Cheng-Kung, Sheng-Li, Kuang-Fu, Cheng-Hsing, Tzu-Chiang, Ching-Yeh, Li-Hsing, and Tung-Ning—linked by the streets and pedestrian routes surrounding University Road.
The campus developed outward from the Cheng-Kung Campus, the site selected for the university's predecessor, Tainan Technical College, in the early 1930s. The original campus was planned between 1929 and 1934 and, among comparable higher technical schools in the Japanese Empire, was notable for its large site, athletic space, and departmental buildings arranged around paired courtyards. Four school buildings from the original complex survive and have been designated municipal monuments by the Tainan city government.
As the university expanded after World War II, it acquired neighboring government and military properties rather than developing a single new campus, incorporating surviving structures from several periods into the university grounds. Its present architectural landscape consequently includes remnants of the Qing-era city walls, Japanese colonial school buildings and military barracks, postwar modernist buildings constructed during the period of American technical assistance, and more recent university facilities.
NCKU has also incorporated environmental design into recent campus development, with university policy requiring major new buildings and renovations to obtain at least a silver rating under Taiwan's Green Building Label system. Its long-term sustainability plan calls for the campus to achieve carbon neutrality by 2041.
Cheng-Kung Campus The Cheng-Kung Campus is NCKU's oldest precinct and remains primarily occupied by science and engineering departments, along with the university's main library and several administrative and research facilities. Its present layout preserves the site of the Tainan Technical College, whose original buildings were erected during the first phase of campus construction between 1930 and 1934. The college's former administration building, completed in 1933, now houses the National Cheng Kung University Museum and is a municipal monument. The former physics building and Ger-Chih Hall are also protected historic structures from the original technical-school complex.
Kuang-Fu Campus
The Kuang-Fu Campus lies west of Cheng-Kung and was acquired from the Ministry of National Defense in 1966. It contains the central university administration, the College of Liberal Arts, several planning and design departments, student facilities, athletic fields, and a group of historic Japanese military buildings. Much of the site had previously served as the barracks of the Japanese Army's Second Taiwan Infantry Regiment, and three surviving buildings from the complex are now designated together as a national monument. Constructed in 1912, the surviving barracks incorporate arcaded verandas and red-brick walls and are now used by academic units including the Department of History and Graduate Institute of Art Studies.
Near the former barracks is Banyan Garden, one of the university's best-known open spaces. Its largest banyan was planted in 1923 by Japanese crown prince Hirohito, later Emperor Shōwa, during his visit to Taiwan and has since become a widely recognized symbol of NCKU. To its east is Cheng-Kung Lake, which was created during construction of the university's athletic field in 1970 and is bordered by royal poinciana trees.
Other main-campus precincts
Sheng-Li Campus, across University Road from Cheng-Kung, was acquired in 1950 and is used primarily for student housing, recreation, and student services. Its former main library, completed in 1959, is one of the campus's most prominent buildings from the postwar American-aid period and was designed according to modernist principles emphasizing simple geometric forms and functional planning. After library operations moved to the present main library in 2001, the old building was used for student study and other purposes; its front wing was designated a historic building in 2016 and subsequently renovated as the NCKU Future Venue.
North of the central campuses, the Cheng-Hsing Campus occupies a former army artillery training site acquired in 1971 and contains the College of Medicine and National Cheng Kung University Hospital, as well as programs in nursing, rehabilitation, and biomedical engineering. The Tzu-Chiang Campus, acquired from the military in 1983, contains several of NCKU's major engineering departments and outdoor athletic facilities. Ching-Yeh and Tung-Ning are used principally for student and faculty housing, recreation, and related services.
Li-Hsing Campus developed from three adjoining government and military properties acquired between 1988 and 2002 and contains medical facilities, the College of Social Sciences, and several research centers. It is also the site of the Y. S. Sun Green Building Research Center, commonly known as the Magic School of Green Technology, which began operating in 2011. Designed as a demonstration project for low-energy construction, it was Taiwan's first zero-carbon, energy-saving building and uses natural ventilation, water conservation, and other passive-design strategies to reduce resource consumption.
Other campuses NCKU maintains several specialized campuses away from its central Tainan grounds. The Kuei-Jen Campus in Guiren District was initially developed for aeronautics and astronautics research and now accommodates facilities for aerospace engineering, earthquake engineering, and building and fire-safety research. Its research facilities include the Aerospace Science and Technology Research Center and laboratories associated with the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering and the Ministry of the Interior's Architecture and Building Research Institute.
The An-Nan Campus occupies approximately of former Taiwan Salt Works land in Annan District and is primarily devoted to industry–university cooperation, environmental research, hydraulics, and experimental facilities. Among its facilities are a hydraulic model experimental field, environmental-resources laboratories, aquaculture research facilities, and laboratories for water-quality research.
The Dou-Liu Campus in Douliu, Yunlin County, was transferred to NCKU in 2005 from a former military hospital and operates principally as the Douliu Branch of National Cheng Kung University Hospital. University plans also include a Shalun Campus within the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, planned around health care, medical innovation, and digital technology. The Executive Yuan approved the first phase of the associated NCKU Shalun Medical Service and Innovation Park in 2021 as a center for smart health care and digital-governance research.
Academics
The university is organized into eleven academic colleges: the colleges of Liberal Arts, Science, Management, Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Social Science, Planning and Design, Bioscience and Biotechnology, and Medicine, as well as the Miin Wu School of Computing and the Academy of Innovative Semiconductor and Sustainable Manufacturing. As of March 2025, NCKU reported 45 departments and 39 institutes, offering 47 bachelor's programs, 120 master's programs—including 27 in-service master's programs—and 67 doctoral programs.