Located in the northwestern suburbs of Beijing, Tsinghua University was built in 1911 on the site of "Qing Hua Yuan" - the former royal garden of the Qing Dynasty. Run by part of the "Boxing Indemnity", it at first was merely a preparatory school called "Tsinghua Xue Tang" for the students who were sent by the Government to study in the United States of America. It changed to "Tsinghua School" after the "1911 Revolution". In 1925, the school became the National Tsinghua University. After the Resistance War Against Japanese broke out, Tsinghua University was moved south to Changsha, then Kunming and merged into the Southwest Associated University together with Peking University and Nankai University. In 1946, Tsinghua University returned to its original campus in Beijing.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tsinghua University became a polytechnical university, focusing on engineering with the nationwide restructuring of university and college carried out in 1952. In order to fit in with the development of modern scientific technology, the university continuously adjusted and restructured departments and majors, and established new majors of emerging technological subject. The university gradually restored disciplines of science, economic management, humanities and social sciencese specially after 1978.

	1911 Establishment of "Tsinghua Xue Tang", later changed to "Tsinghua School" (preparatory school for students to study in the USA)
	1925 Establishment of college division
	1928 "National Tsinghua University", having 4 schools: Liberal Arts, Law, Sciences and Engineering and 16 departments
	1937 Move to Changsha, merged into "Changsha Temporary University" together with Peking University and Nankai University
	1938 Move to Kunming, changed to "Southwest Associated University"
	1946 Return to original campus - "Qing Hua Yuan" in Beijing, with 5 schools: Liberal Arts, Law, Sciences, Engineering and Agriculture and 26 departments
	1952 Becoming polytechnical university after the nationwide restructuring
	1978 Resume of nationwide College Entrance Examination
	1984 Establishment of the first Graduate School in China. Setting up the School of Economic Management on the basis of department of management engineering. Resume of the School of Sciences on the basis of science departments.
	1985 the First School of Continuing Education in China
	1988 Establishment of the School of Architecture on the basis of the Department of Architecture
	1993 Establishment of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences on the basis of former departments and research institutes of humanities and social sciences
	1994 Establishment of the School of Information Science and Technology
	1996 Establishment of the School of Mechanical Engineering