London becomes world's top city for higher education

LONDON, Sept. 16 (Xinhua/Sun) -- London is the only city with the highest number of top-rated universities across the world, according to the QS World University Rankings released Tuesday.

According to the new rankings, Britain has four of the world's top six universities, while the capital of Britain also has five of the world's top 100 universities.

The five universities in London include Imperial College London, University College London (UCL), King's College London, London School of Economics and Queen Mary University of London. Their rankings are second, fifth, 16th, 71st and 98th respectively.

It said London is the only city in the world with so many universities in the top 100 world's universities, following by Boston and Hong Kong with three universities in top 100.

New rankings showed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is in first place, while the University of Cambridge shares second place with Imperial College London.

Harvard University stands at fourth place, while University of Oxford ties with UCL for joint fifth.

"These rankings consolidate London's position as the education capital of the world," Mayor of London Boris Johnson said Tuesday.

"Nowhere else will you find such a critical mass of top universities within just a few miles of each other, all providing an excellent education and producing graduates who go on to be leaders in their fields. From accountants to zoologists, I'm proud to say that London universities are at the forefront of teaching and research," he added.

The Chinese mainland has three universities ranked in the top 100, with Tsinghua University at 47th, Peking University at 57th and Fudan University at 71st.

The University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong are ranked 28th, 40th and 46th.

The annual university rankings are published by British Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), which is one of the three most influential and widely observed international university rankings, alongside the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

QS World University Rankings are based on academic reputation, employer reputation, student-faculty ratio, citation per faculty and international faculty ratio and international student ratio.