University of Cologne

The University of Cologne is a public research university in Cologne, Germany, established in 1388 as the fourth university of the Holy Roman Empire, after Prague, Vienna and Heidelberg. Its charter was signed by Pope Urban VI and teaching began on 6 January 1389. The French First Republic abolished it in 1798, and in 1919 the Prussian government endorsed a decision of the Cologne City Council to re-establish it, a step seen as a replacement for the loss of the university of Strasbourg to France. Mayor Konrad Adenauer signed the new charter on 29 May 1919. It began with a faculty of business, economics and social sciences and a faculty of medicine, added law and arts in 1920, and moved to its present campus in Lindenthal in 1934. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany, with around 43,594 students, and is operated by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.