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Panjab University is a prestigious public university located in Chandigarh, India. Originated in 1882 as the University of the Punjab, it was relocated in Chandigarh in the year 1947 as the East Punjab University after the partition of India, where the university was split between Pakistan and India.

The university has 78 teaching and research departments and 10 centres/chairs for teaching and research at the main campus located at Chandigarh. It has 188 affiliated colleges spread over the eight districts of Punjab state and union-territory of Chandigarh, with Regional Centres at Muktsar, Ludhiana and Hoshiarpur cities in Punjab state. It is one of the most highly ranked universities in India.

The campus is residential, spread over 550 acres (2.2 km2) in sector 14 and 25 of the city of Chandigarh. The main administrative and academic buildings are located in sector 14, beside a health centre, a sports complex, hostels and residential housing.[7]

The present-day Panjab University traces its roots to the University of the Punjab established on 14 October 1882 at Lahore (now in Punjab, Pakistan). Most of the colleges affiliated to University of the Punjab were in the present Indian part of British India.

After the partition of India in 1947, the university was split into two for Indian Punjab and Pakistani Punjab. A new university was then established/relocated in the Punjab, India in 1947. To distinguish the two, the name of the university on the Indian side, the spelling for 'Punjab' was changed to Panjab. After 1947 the university had no campus of its own for nearly a decade. The administrative office was in Solan and the teaching departments functioned from Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Delhi, and Amritsar.

In 1956 the university was relocated to Chandigarh, on a red sandstone campus designed by Pierre Jeanneret under the guidance of Le Corbusier. Until the re-organisation of Punjab in 1966, the university had its regional centres at Rohtak, Shimla, Jalandhar and its affiliated colleges were in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and U.T. of Chandigarh. With the re-organisation of Punjab, the university became an Inter-State Body Corporate catering to the newly organised state of Punjab and union-territory of Chandigarh.