Year of foundation: 1908
Approx. number of students: 39,000
Period of study: Mid July-Early December; Mid February-Early July
MCI partner since: 2011
The City
Pretoria is located in the northern part of Gauteng Province and has approx. 2,4 million inhabitants. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive (administrative) and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital. Pretoria is contained within the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality as one of several constituent former administrations (among which also Centurion and Soshanguve). Pretoria itself is sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Tshwane" in a controversial proposed name change, the status of which is still being decided as at 2011.
The city's original name was Pretoria Philadelphia ("Pretoria of brotherly love"). It gave its name to the Pax Praetoriana, referring to the country's relative stability.
The University
The University of Pretoria (commonly referred to as Pretoria, UP, Tuks, or Tukkies) is a multi campus public research university.
The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johannesburg based Transvaal University College and has grown from the original 32 students in a single late Victorian house to approximately 39000 in 2010. In post-nominals the University of Pretoria is typically abbreviated as Pret or UP, although Pretoria is also used in official publications.
Since 1997, the university has produced more research outputs every year than any other institution of higher learning in South Africa, as measured by the Department of Education's accreditation benchmark. In 2008 the university awarded 15.8% of all masters and doctorate degrees in South Africa, the highest percentage in the country. 