University of Waterloo

The University of Waterloo (commonly referred to as Waterloo, UW or UWaterloo) is a public research university with a main campus located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on 404 hectares (1,000 acres) of land in "Uptown" Waterloo, adjacent to Waterloo Park. The university offers academic programs administered by six faculties and ten faculty-based schools. The university also operates four satellite campuses and four affiliated university colleges. Waterloo is a member of the U15, a group of research-intensive universities in Canada.

The institution was established on 1 July 1957 as the Waterloo College Associate Faculties, a semi-autonomous entity of Waterloo College. This entity formally separated from Waterloo College in 1959, and was incorporated as a university. It was established to fill the need to train engineers and technicians for Canada's growing postwar economy. It grew substantially over the next decade, adding a faculty of arts in 1960, and the College of Optometry of Ontario which moved from Toronto in 1967.

The university is co-educational, and has nearly 26,000 undergraduate and over 4,000 post-graduate students. Alumni and former students of the university can be found across Canada and in over 140 countries. The university ranked 151-200th in the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities, 180th in the 2013 QS World University Rankings, and 226-250th in the 2012–2013 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Waterloo's computer science and computer engineering programs are ranked 24th and 43rd respectively by QS World University Rankings and Academic Ranking of World Universities. Waterloo's varsity teams, known as the Waterloo Warriors, compete in the Ontario University Athletics conference of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport.