Beijing Foreign Studies University, or BFSU, is one of China’s top universities under the direct leadership of the Chinese Ministry of Education. It is listed under Project 985, Project 211 and Double First-Class Project of China. Located in Haidian District, Beijing, it has two campuses- the West Campus and the East Campus, separated by the North Xisanhuan Road.

In 1941, BFSU was first built as the Russian Language Team in the Third Branch of Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political College. It was later renamed as Yan’an Foreign Languages School under the direct leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the school was put under the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was renamed as Beijing Foreign Languages Institute in 1954 and merged with Beijing Russian Institute in 1959. Since 1980, the Institute was put under the direct leadership of the Ministry of Education. In 1994, it took on its current name Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU).

Today, BFSU teaches 101 foreign languages, more than any other Chinese universities. It is the first in China to offer courses in some less commonly taught European, Asian and African languages. While best known for its excellence in foreign languages & literature, BFSU has also launched programs in more fields such as humanities, law, economics，management，etc. BFSU now offers courses in the following languages ( in chronological order): Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Romanian, Japanese, Arabic, Cambodian, Lao, Singhalese, Malay, Swedish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Croatian, Hausa, Vietnamese, Thai, Turkish, Korean, Slovak, Finnish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish, Greek, Filipino, Hindi, Urdu, Hebrew, Persian, Slovenian, Estonian, Latvian，Lithuanian，Irish, Maltese, Bangali, Kazakh, Uzbek, Latin, Zulu, Kyrgyz, Pashtu, Sanskrit，Pali，Amharic， Nepalese， Somali， Tamil， Turkmen，Català, Yoruba, Mongolian, Armenian, Malagasy, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Afrikaans, Macedonian, Tajiki, Tswana, Ndebele, Comorian, Creole, Shona, Tigrinya, Belarusian, Maori, Tangan, Samoan, Kurdish, Bislama, Dari, Tetum, Dhivehi, Fijian, Cook Islands Maori, Kirundi, Luxembourgish, Kinyarwanda, Niuean, Tok Pisin, Chewa, Sesotho, Sango, Tamazight, Javanese, and Punjabi. To better serve China’s diplomatic efforts，we now teach all official languages of countries with diplomatic relations with China.

Today BFSU has 33 teaching and research institutions, many of which were newly launched in recent years. These new institutions include an international graduate school jointly run by BFSU and the University of Nottingham (UK), BFSU Academy of Language Sciences, BFSU Academy of Foreign Literature Studies, BFSU Academy of Regional and Global Governance, BFSU Academy of Comparative Civilization and Intercultural Communication, Beiwai College, School of Global Governance, and Graduate School of Education. Furthermore, the School of Asian and African Studies was reorganized and split into two separate schools ——School of Asian Studies and School of African Studies. BFSU also has 1 key research center for social sciences under the Ministry of Education (MOE) (National Research Center for Foreign Language Education), 1 research center under State Language Commission (National Research Center for Development of Language Aptitude), 4 centers for regional and country studies under MOE (Center for Central and Eastern European Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, British Studies Center, and Canadian Studies Center), 37 centers for regional and country studies registered at MOE, and 3 research centers for people-to-people exchanges under MOE (China-Indonesia Research Center for People-to-People Exchanges, China-France Research Center for People-to-People Exchanges, and China-Germany Research Center for People-to-People Exchanges). BFSU publishes 4 CSSCI journals (Foreign Language Teaching and Research, Foreign Literature, International Forum, and International Sinology), 1 CSSCI-expanded journal (Foreign Language Education in China), and other journals (e.g. Russian in China, Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, International Chinese Language Education，English Language Learning，Germanistische Kulturwissenschaften, Etudes Francophones, Area Studies and Global Development). BFSU also runs Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP), the largest publishing house in China for foreign language books, audio-visual products and digital products.