The University of Hamburg is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System, the Hamburg Colonial Institute, and the Academic College. Universität Hamburg celebrated its one hundredth anniversary in 2019. One century ago, it was born of the spirit of democracy that swept Germany as the Weimar Republic was founded. On 28 March 1919, the new Hamburg Parliament passed a resolution to establish a university. It was the first parliament chosen by the citizens of Hamburg in a free and fair election, making Universität Hamburg the first democratically founded university in Germany. It opened on 10 May 1919, and a concert in the music hall marked the occasion.

Universität Hamburg has achieved extraordinary success in the Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments, a competition for top-level university research funding in Germany.

Universität Hamburg is northern Germany’s largest and most diverse center of research. The University is known for its outstanding basic research as well as its applied and transfer research projects. Following the expansion of the Von-Melle-Park Campus in the mid-1960s, the university quarter grew towards the Bundesstrasse, where the 22-floor Geomatikum was built in the 1970s. With its several campuses, the University is present across the entire Hamburg metropolitan area. This includes the central Von-Melle-Park campus, the climate and geosciences precinct on the Bundesstrasse campus, the Eppendorf campus dedicated to medical training, the Bahrenfeld campus housing the physics institutes, and the Klein Flottbek campus with the Institute of Plant Science and Microbiology and the Botanical Garden. Further academic institutions at Universität Hamburg include, for example, the Observatory in Bergedorf and the Institute of Wood Science in Lohbrügge.

Universität Hamburg is international and cosmopolitan, qualities integral to being what we call the "gateway to the world of science and scholarship." This openess is inspired by the city of Hamburg itself, as a harbor city positioned both politically and culturally as a "gateway to the world." In all of its scientific and scholarly pursuits, the University upholds the city's long-standing tradition of openness, tolerance, and international cooperation and universality.

You will need to book the accommodation after you have been accepted.

You can choose to live on campus or off campus in private accommodation.

• Make a booking online after you have been accepted (in this case please let us know your choice when you apply).
• Register when you arrive - its not possible to reserve a room before arriving. You can arrive a few days before and book it