Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: Institution Main

About Tokyo University of Foreign Studies:

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (東京外国語大学, Tōkyō Gaikokugo Daigaku), also know as TUFS is a national university in Tokyo. The University is the oldest academic institution devoted to international studies in Japan.  It began as the Institute for Research of Foreign Documents (蛮書調所, Bansho Shirabesho), a translation bureaufor the Tokugawa Shogunate's set up in 1857.  The university shares its orign with the University of Tokyo and Hitotsubashi Univesity.  The predecessor of TUFS  was called Tokyo School of Foreign Languages (東京外国語学校, Tōkyō Gaikokugo Gakkō ), which was founded in 1873 through Kaisei Gakko (開成学校), which was founded in 1889 by Dr. Walter Russell Lambuth (later Bishop), a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, based in the US South.  TUFS  became an independent co-educational institution under the new postwar educational system in 1949. 

Today, TUFS offers Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees in almost 40 different disciplines to around 20,000 students. There are 11 undergraduate and 13 graduate schools.  Besides foreign language, international affairs and foreign studies,TUFS is also a major center for Asian-African Studies.