In 1925, the year Liao Zhongkai was killed, his widow He Xiangning joined others in proposing a school in his memory. Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering in Guangzhou is the only Chinese university named for Liao Zhongkai, the revolutionary leader who gave his life for China’s farmers and workers, the two groups the school was founded to serve.
The school admitted its first students in March 1927 as the Zhongkai Agricultural and Industrial School, opening with two departments, sericulture and agriculture. He Xiangning herself served as its first principal, and the choice of departments reflected the rural economy the school was meant to lift.
The road to a university came in stages: a national key secondary school in 1980, a four-year college in 1984 under the name Zhongkai Agricultural Technical College, master’s degree rights in 2006, the present name in 2008, and approval in 2021 as one of Guangdong’s doctoral cultivation units.
Today 22 schools offer 65 undergraduate programs, among them two national first-class programs and 13 provincial first-class ones, alongside ten first-level master’s disciplines and eight professional master’s categories. Four disciplines rank in the ESI global top-1-percent, four are key disciplines of Guangdong Province, and the university runs three provincial-and-ministerial key laboratories and 78 research platforms, supported by a postdoctoral workstation and a doctoral workstation.
More than 17,000 full-time undergraduates and postgraduates, drawn from 16 provinces, study across the Baiyun and Haizhu campuses in Guangzhou, which cover some 107 hectares. The faculty counts nearly 1,700 members, with close to 1,200 full-time teachers; 610 hold doctorates and 475 hold senior titles, and the university lists 60-plus provincial-level talents and 25 provincial research teams.
The university has been guided since 1987 by a board of prominent figures from Guangdong and Hong Kong, and donations from Hong Kong and Macao benefactors, among them Henry Fok Ying-tung, have built teaching buildings, libraries and laboratories. Abroad, it keeps ties with more than 40 universities and research institutes in the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Japan and Malaysia. It hosts the earliest IELTS test center in southern China and was named among the first national centers for agricultural training for foreign participants.
The school that opened with silkworms is now a university of 22 schools and 65 programs, and at its center stands the cause for which it was built: farmers and workers, served by science. A name that began as a memorial has become a working institution.
Data Source: ZHKU Official Website (as of 2026)
