In 1955, when China’s aviation industry was barely a decade old, a school was founded in Xi’an to train its workers. Xihang University, then the Xi’an Aviation Industry School, answered to the national aviation ministry for more than four decades before passing to Shaanxi province in 1999, and it became an undergraduate university in 2012. Its name, Xihang, is the city’s shorthand for aviation, and the school has spent seventy years living up to it.
The university now runs two campuses, in Lianhu district in central Xi’an and in Yanliang, home of China’s aviation city, covering about 1,158 mu, roughly 77 hectares. Over 13,600 students study across 14 teaching units in 41 undergraduate programs, with an aviation-shaped structure the school calls one body, two wings: aircraft manufacturing at the center, with transport aviation and general aviation on either side.
Its programs run from aircraft manufacturing and power engineering to flight technology, electronic information and robotics. One national first-class program and eight provincial ones anchor the curriculum, and the university was the first in northwest China to offer undergraduate flight technology training. It holds a national engineering research center for special pump systems and a provincial key laboratory for hydraulic technology, and its faculty of about 1,070 includes over 420 with senior titles.
The university’s partnerships follow the industry: it works with the country’s major aircraft manufacturers, including AVIC, AECC and COMAC, and it has set up specialized training classes with airlines and an aviation maintenance company. Its connection to the Yanliang aviation city gives students direct access to factories and test facilities, and the school operates its own factory for teaching and production.
Research has produced 1,339 authorized patents and nearly 5,400 published papers, with 28 national natural science foundation projects and 263 provincial projects. Students have won 1,738 national and 2,789 provincial awards in competitions, from electronics design to mathematical modeling.
Internationally, the school runs dual-degree programs with universities in Germany, New Zealand and the United States, and it hosts an international innovation curriculum in six programs. In Xi’an, a city that builds aircraft and trains pilots, Xihang University remains the school that started it all in 1955.
Data Source: Xihang University Official Website (as of 2026)
