Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The university was founded in 1885 and admitted its first students on October 1, 1891, as a co-educational and non-denominational institution.

The university is organized around seven schools: three schools consisting of 40 academic departments at the undergraduate level as well as four professional schools that focus on graduate programs in law, medicine, education, and business. All schools are on the same campus.

As of March 2020, 83 Nobel laureates, 28 Turing Award laureates, and 8 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, faculty or staff. In addition, Stanford University is particularly noted for its entrepreneurship and is one of the most successful universities in attracting funding for start-ups. Stanford alumni have founded numerous companies, which combined produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue and have created 5.4 million jobs as of 2011, roughly equivalent to the 7th largest economy in the world (as of 2020). Stanford is the alma mater of one president of the United States (Herbert Hoover), 30 living billionaires, and 17 astronauts. It is also one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress.