Famous throughout the world for its 800-year-old university, Oxford is a centre for learning and research that continues to attract the very best academics from across the globe.

The city also draws tourists from all over the world. More than five million people come to the city every year to visit the university colleges and marvel at the beautiful honey gold buildings with their domes and spires. Matthew Arnold called Oxford the city of ‘dreaming spires', and there is indeed something dreamlike about this city on the Thames - or the Isis, as the river is called in Oxford.

It is thought that Oxford has its name from Oxen-ford, an early medieval settlement around a safe crossing place for cattle in the Thames. By the 13th century Oxford had developed into a bustling town, and it was in that century that the first university colleges, University College, Balliol College and Merton College, appeared. Today there are 39 colleges at the university. The newest, Kellogg College, was established in 1990. All colleges are mixed except for St Hilda's, which is for women only.

Oxford has always maintained close links to royalty and government. During the English Civil War (1642-1651) the city became the Royalist capital of England, with Charles I setting up home at Christ Church and his wife Henrietta Maria keeping court at the neighbouring Merton College.

Oxford University has educated 25 British Prime Ministers, including Sir Robert Peel (Christ Church), William E Gladstone (Christ Church), Harold Macmillan (Balliol), Margaret Thatcher (Somerville) and Tony Blair (St John's).

Today Oxford is a vibrant cosmopolitan town with a substantial proportion of both students and residents having non-English backgrounds, and a new urbanism has developed with many bars, cafes, restaurants, clubs, ethnic shops and fast food outlets.

Oxford is moving forward in the field of learning too. While it is still rooted in the university's centuries-old traditions of teaching and learning, it is also embracing new knowledge-based industries, and new hi-tech communities are growing up in the science and business parks surrounding the city.