Fudan University is a member of the C9 League. It has four campuses in Shanghai, including Handan, Fenglin, Zhangjiang, and Jiangwan.

Fudan University was established in 1905 as Fudan Public School. It was the first institution of higher education to be founded by a Chinese person. The two characters, fù (“return”) and dàn (“dawn”) were borrowed from A Commentary on The Classic of History, of which the part on the Yu and the Xia dynasties mentions: “Brilliant are the sunshine and moonlight, again the morning radiance returns at dawn.” In 1917, the institution was renamed Fudan University, which has been kept ever since.  

In the 1970s, after the Cultural Revolution, the university was changed to a modern, comprehensive-style university. Fudan University and Shanghai Medical University were merged on April 27, 2000.