C9 League

For the eSports team, see Cloud9 League of Legends.

The C9 League is an alliance of nine leading public universities in China. It was established on May 4, 1998, during the 100th anniversary of Peking University.

C9 League

九校联盟
Formation	4 May 1998; 27 years ago (1998-05-04)
Founded at	Beijing, China
Region	China
Membership	9 universities nationwide
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	九校联盟
Traditional Chinese	九校聯盟
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Jiǔxiào Liánméng

Membership

The C9 league comprises nine public universities:^[1]

• Fudan University – Shanghai
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University – Shanghai
• Harbin Institute of Technology – Harbin, Heilongjiang
• Nanjing University – Nanjing, Jiangsu
• Peking University – Beijing
• Tsinghua University – Beijing
• University of Science and Technology of China – Hefei, Anhui
• Xi'an Jiaotong University – Xi'an, Shaanxi
• Zhejiang University – Hangzhou, Zhejiang

All C9 League schools are part of Project 985, Project 211, Plan 111, and Double First-Class Construction.^[2][3] In 2014, the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences started to participate in the C9 League meetings.^[4]

Rankings

The following are the rankings of the C9 schools in the four major world university rankings that are recognized by governments in multiple countries and regions.^[5][6][7][8]

University	City	QS (2026)[9]	THE (2026)[10]	ARWU (2025)[11]	USNWR (2025)[12]	Average
Members
Tsinghua University	Beijing	17	12	18	11	14
Peking University	Beijing	14	13	23	25	19
Zhejiang University	Hangzhou	49	39	24	45	39
Shanghai Jiao Tong University	Shanghai	=47	40	30	46	41
Fudan University	Shanghai	30	36	41	70	44
University of Science and Technology of China	Hefei	=132	51	40	71	73
Nanjing University	Nanjing	=103	62	75	86	81
Harbin Institute of Technology	Harbin	256	131	101-150	128	160
Xi'an Jiaotong University	Xi'an	305	201-250	92	141	191
Participant[4]
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences	Beijing	=362	N/A	N/A	54	208

See also

• List of universities in China
• Double First-Class Construction, a scheme for improving 147 of China's top universities
• Excellence League, an alliance of leading Chinese universities with strong backgrounds in engineering
• Project 985, a former project for developing 39 leading research universities in China
• Project 211, a former program for developing 115 comprehensive universities in China
• National Key Universities (China)
• Seven Sons of National Defence