Princess Nourah bint Abdul Rahman University

Princess Nourah bint Abdul Rahman University, known in Arabic as جامعة الأميرة نورة بنت عبد الرحمن, is a public women's university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and it is the largest university for women in the world.努拉公主大学（阿拉伯语：جامعة الأميرة نورة بنت عبد الرحمن）是沙特阿拉伯首都利雅得的一所公立女子大学，也是全球规模最大的女子高校。

Founded in 1970 as the first college of education for women in the kingdom and renamed in 2008 for Princess Nourah, the elder sister of the founding king Abdulaziz, it is commonly abbreviated to PNU.该校始建于 1970 年，是全国第一所女子师范学院，2008 年以开国国王阿卜杜勒-阿齐兹之姐努拉公主之名命名，通称 PNU。

It runs 34 colleges, keeps more than 5,000 academic and administrative staff, and is placed in the 801-850 band of the QS World University Rankings 2027.该校辖有 34 个学院，拥有 5000 余名教学与行政人员，在 2027 年 QS 世界大学排名中列第 801-850 位。

History

• The university began in 1970, during the reign of King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, as the first College of Education for women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, opening a system of female higher education that had no precedent.该校始于 1970 年费萨尔国王在位时期，作为沙特阿拉伯王国第一所女子师范学院创立，由此开启了此前并无先例的女子高等教育体系。

• Over the twenty-five years after 1970 some 102 similar women's colleges were founded in 72 cities across the country, accommodating roughly 60,000 students by the mid-1990s in education and related fields.1970 年后的二十五年间，全国 72 座城市陆续增设约 102 所同类女子学院，到 1990 年代中期共容纳约 6 万名学生，主修教育及相关专业。

• Before the 2004 merger six of those colleges stood in the capital Riyadh alone, covering education, social service, science, arts and home economics, and they formed the academic core unified into a single university.在 2004 年合并之前，其中六所学院设于首都利雅得，涵盖教育、社会服务、科学、艺术与家政等科，构成后来并为一校的学术核心。

• In 2004 the government decided to merge all the women's colleges in Riyadh, creating the first all-female university in the kingdom, while colleges in other regions were likewise unified into separate regional universities.2004 年政府决定将利雅得所有女子学院合并，创办全国第一所全女子大学，其他地区的学院亦各自合并为独立的地方大学。

• In 2008 the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, granted the institution full university status and gave it its present name honouring Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman.2008 年两圣地监护人阿卜杜拉国王赐予该校正式大学地位，并以努拉公主之名重新命名。

• The name Nourah means light in Arabic, and the princess honoured was the elder sister and adviser of King Abdulaziz, the founder of the kingdom, and the eldest daughter of Abdul Rahman bin Faisal.努拉在阿拉伯语中意为光明，所纪念的公主是开国国王阿卜杜勒-阿齐兹的姐姐与谋臣，也是阿卜杜勒-拉赫曼·本·费萨尔的长女。

• Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, from whom the namesake descended, was the last emir of the Second Saudi State, so the university carries the lineage of the ruling house that preceded the modern kingdom.努拉公主之父阿卜杜勒-拉赫曼·本·费萨尔是第二沙特酋长国的末代埃米尔，故校名承载着现代王国之前王室的世系。

• The first rector appointed to lead the newly named university was Princess Al Jawhara bint Fahd Al Saud, who took charge as the institution moved from a group of colleges toward a unified campus.更名后的首任校长由法赫德之女贾瓦哈拉公主出任，她在学校由分散学院向统一校区过渡的过程中主事。

• The purpose-built campus was constructed in a record two years before its 2011 opening, supported by about 75,000 construction workers and the latest building machinery, forming a self-contained higher-education city on the edge of Riyadh.新校区以创纪录的两年建成、并于 2011 年启用，动用约 7.5 万名建筑工人与最新施工机械，在利雅得郊外形成一座自成体系的高教城。

• On 12 June 2011 King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud opened the new campus in an official ceremony, describing women as maintainers of social stability and builders of the national economy.2011 年 6 月 12 日阿卜杜拉国王为新校区主持落成典礼，称女性是社会稳定的维护者与国民经济的建设者。

• In that address the king asked women to be caring mothers, exemplary citizens and productive employees, and abroad to act as ambassadors of their country representing its religion, faith and values.他在致辞中要求女性做慈爱的母亲、合格的公民与称职的员工，出国时则充当国家使节，代表本国的宗教、信仰与价值观。

• In February 2017 the university hosted the first opera ever staged in Saudi Arabia, a production of Antar and Alba mounted by Opera Lebanon, a cultural first for a women's institution.2017 年 2 月该校上演沙特阿拉伯史上第一场歌剧《安塔拉与阿尔芭》，由黎巴嫩歌剧团制作，是女子院校的一次文化突破。

• In early 2018 it became the first institution in the kingdom to open a driving school for women after King Salman granted women the right to drive, with more than 50,000 female students expected to enrol.2018 年初，在萨勒曼国王允许女性驾车后，该校成为全国第一所开设女子驾校的机构，预计有逾 5 万名女生参加。

• Even with such advances the country still recorded some of the world's highest unemployment rates among women, a gap that the university's diplomas and degree programmes were meant to help close.尽管有上述进步，沙特女性失业率仍居世界前列，该校的文凭与学位项目意在帮助弥合这一缺口。

• In 2016 the university signed a memorandum of understanding with the General Authority for Sports, aiming to raise everyday participation in physical activity to 40 percent of the population by 2030.2016 年该校与体育总局签署谅解备忘录，目标是到 2030 年将日常体育锻炼参与率提升至人口的 40%。

• Because of the campus's vast size an automated transit system was built across it, and the driverless people mover opened in 2012 to carry students between the widely separated college buildings.因校园幅员辽阔，校内在其上铺设了自动轨道交通，无人驾驶捷运于 2012 年通车，往返于分散各处的学院楼宇。

• The guideway network was built to light-metro standards using the same driverless technology as the Copenhagen Metro, a technology choice that made the small railway a model of the whole smart campus.该线路按轻型地铁标准建造，采用与哥本哈根地铁相同的无人驾驶技术，使这条小铁路成为整座智能校园的样板。

• Thirty-eight of the university's buildings, together covering a million square metres, were submitted for the LEED green-building rating, and the central library applied for the second-highest LEED Gold level.全校 38 栋建筑合计约 100 万平方米申报了 LEED 绿色建筑认证，中央图书馆则申请其中第二高的金级认证。

• Its sustainable design added a water-recycling plant, a solar thermal plant and 4,000 square metres of solar panels that supply about 16 percent of heating and 18 percent of air-conditioning needs.可持续设计配套中水回用厂与太阳能集热站，并铺设 4000 平方米光伏板，提供约 16% 的采暖与 18% 的空调需求。

• Since the campus opened in 2011 it has covered 13 million square metres with a planned capacity of 60,000 students, documented as the largest and most modern women's university of higher education in the world.自 2011 年启用以来，校园占地 1300 万平方米、规划容量 6 万名学生，被记载为全球规模最大、最现代化的女子高等学府。

• Today the university confers diplomas, bachelor's and postgraduate degrees, and it stands as a public institution funded and supervised by the Saudi state rather than a privately run college.该校今授予文凭、学士与研究生学位，是一所由沙特国家出资并监管的公立院校，而非私立学院。

Academics

• Teaching is organised across 34 colleges in the city of Riyadh and the neighbouring towns, grouped into health, science and humanities clusters and supplemented by a community college and a language institute.教学分布于利雅得及周边城镇的 34 个学院，按健康、理科与人文三大板块编组，另设社区学院与语言学院加以补充。

• The health cluster includes the College of Medicine, the College of Dentistry, the College of Nursing, the College of Pharmacy and the College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, each with its own specialist departments.健康板块含医学院、牙医学院、护理学院、药学院以及健康与康复科学学院，各院之下又设专科系。

• Within health, dentistry is divided into basic, preventive and clinical dental sciences, while pharmacy splits into pharmaceutical and clinical pharmacy and rehabilitation covers medical technology and communication sciences.在健康板块内，牙学分基础、预防与临床三部，药学分药剂学与临床药学，康复则涵盖医学技术与传播科学。

• The science cluster holds the College of Business and Administration, the College of Computer and Information Science and the College of Science, covering economics, law, accounting, physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology.理科板块设商学与行政学院、计算机与信息科学学院及理学院，涵盖经济、法律、会计、物理、化学、数学与生物等学科。

• The College of Computer and Information Science runs computer science, information systems and networking and telecommunication systems, one of the most in-demand degree pathways on the Riyadh campus.计算机与信息科学学院开设计算科学、信息系统及网络与通信系统方向，是利雅得校园内需求最旺的学位路径之一。

• The humanities cluster contains the College of Art and Design, the College of Art, the College of Education, the College of Home Economics, the College of Social Work and the College of Languages and Translation.人文板块含艺术与设计学院、艺术学院、教育学院、家政学院、社会工作学院及语言与翻译学院。

• The College of Art and Design offers interior design, graphic design and digital media, painting and printmaking, and fashion design and textiles, while the College of Art teaches Arabic, history and Islamic studies.艺术与设计学院开设室内设计、平面与数字媒体、绘画版画、时装与纺织等方向，艺术学院则教授阿拉伯语、历史与伊斯兰研究。

• The College of Education prepares teachers through curriculum and instruction, early childhood, special-needs education and psychology, the direct successor to the first women's college of education founded in 1970.教育学院通过课程与教学、学前教育、特殊教育与心理学培养师资，是 1970 年首所女子师范学院的直接继承者。

• A separate Community College provides diplomas in computer sciences and information technology and in administrative sciences, giving shorter vocational pathways beside the four-year degree programmes.独立的社区学院提供计算机与信息技术、行政科学等文凭课程，在四年制学位之外提供更短的职业教育路径。

• The Deanship of Community Service and Continuous Education offers a range of diploma options and lifelong-learning courses that extend the university's teaching beyond its degree-seeking students.社区服务与继续教育事务处开设多种文凭与终身学习课程，将学校教学延伸至学位生之外的人群。

• The Arabic Language Institute serves non-speakers of Arabic with scholarships and hosts over 350 students from more than 40 countries, making it the principal point of international access to the university.阿拉伯语学院以奖学金招收非母语学习者，容纳来自 40 余国的 350 多名学生，是该校面向国际的主要入口。

• Every student first enters a two-year Preparatory Year Program that teaches study skills, intensive English, communication skills and computer skills before admission to a chosen college.所有学生先修读两年制预科项目，学习学习方法、强化英语、沟通技能与计算机技能，方可进入所选学院。

• The university employs more than 5,000 academic and administrative staff across its colleges, institutes and deanships, a workforce sized to support tens of thousands of female students.全校在学院、院所与各事务处共聘用逾 5000 名教学与行政人员，这一规模足以支撑数以万计的女学生。

• Research is organised through the Social Science Research Centre, the Women's Studies Research Centre, the Human and Social Development Research Centre, the Natural Sciences Research Centre and the Aljazeera Chair.研究经由社会科学研究中心、女性学研究中心、人文与社会发展研究中心、自然科学研究中心及半岛电视台讲席教授席位组织。

• The university has established learned societies including the Saudi Society for Child Care and the Arabic Language Society, bodies that link its faculties to professional communities across the kingdom.该校设立了沙特儿童保育学会与阿拉伯语学会等学术团体，把院系与全国各专业社群联系起来。

• The central library holds over 2 million printed books in Arabic and English with a planned capacity of 5 million, alongside journals, government publications, dissertations, databases and manuscripts.中央图书馆藏有阿拉伯语与英语纸本书逾 200 万册、规划容量达 500 万册，并藏有期刊、政府出版物、学位论文、数据库与手稿。

• No publication or citation count from a research database is recorded for the university in this dataset, so its academic output is measured instead by its colleges, its staff and its library.本数据集未收录该校的论文量或被引数，故其学术产出改以学院数、人员规模与馆藏量来衡量。

Campus

• The campus covers 13 million square metres on the eastern edge of Riyadh and is designed to hold a maximum of 60,000 students, making it one of the largest single university sites in the world.校园地处利雅得东郊，占地 1300 万平方米，按最多容纳 6 万名学生的规模设计，是全球最大的单体校园之一。

• It contains about 600 high-tech smart buildings, large-capacity student residencies and several models of faculty housing, arranged as a self-contained higher-education city rather than a cluster of city colleges.校园含约 600 栋高科技智能楼宇、大容量学生宿舍与多种教职员住宅，自成一座高教城，而非散布于城区的学院群。

• Besides its colleges the site runs pre-schools, primary, intermediate and secondary schools for staff families, three recreation centres, a university hospital and a convention centre.除各学院外，校内还办有面向教职员子女的幼儿园、小学、初中与高中，并设三座康乐中心、大学医院与会议中心。

• The university stands near latitude 24.69 and longitude 46.72 in the capital Riyadh, the political and administrative centre of Saudi Arabia, and its buildings spread across the desert plain east of the city.该校位于沙特政治与行政中心利雅得，坐标约为北纬 24.69、东经 46.72，楼宇铺展于城东的荒漠平原之上。

• An 11.5 kilometre automated guideway transit line, the PNU Automated People Mover, opened in 2012 with four lines and fourteen stations to move students across the enormous campus.一条长 11.5 公里的自动轨道交通线即努拉公主大学旅客捷运系统于 2012 年通车，设四条线路与 14 座车站，穿行于广袤校园。

• The network runs 22 two-car AnsaldoBreda driverless trains, each carrying up to 110 passengers at a maximum speed of 60 kilometres an hour, built to light-metro standards.该网络配备 22 组安萨尔多布雷达双节无人驾驶列车，按轻型地铁标准建造，每组最多载客 110 人、时速可达 60 公里。

• Sports facilities include halls for basketball, volleyball, aerobics and cycling together with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, all open to students under the campus support programme.体育设施设篮球、排球、健身操与自行车馆，并配一座奥林匹克规格游泳池，均纳入学生支持计划向女生开放。

• The convention centre offers two large halls of 2,700 and 1,350 seats, the bigger the largest auditorium in the country, plus 13 conference and meeting rooms.会议中心设 2700 座与 1350 座两个大厅，前者是全国最大的礼堂，另有 13 间会议与洽谈室。

• An elegant central library anchors the campus, and student-support centres, bookshops, cafes, a pharmacy, a supermarket and a bank provide everyday services inside the higher-education city.一座典雅的中央图书馆构成校园核心，学生支持中心、书店、咖啡厅、药房、超市与银行在高教城内提供日常服务。

Reputation

• The QS World University Rankings 2027 place Princess Nourah bint Abdul Rahman University in the 801-850 band, the ranking position on which this bilingual entry is written.在 2027 年 QS 世界大学排名中，努拉公主大学被列入第 801-850 位，本双语条目即据此档位收录。

• The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2027 rank the university in the 451-500 band, a stronger showing than its overall QS position for the same cycle.在 2027 年泰晤士高等教育世界大学排名中，该校列入第 451-500 位，明显优于同期其 QS 总榜名次。

• In the 2026-2027 edition of the US News Best Global Universities ranking the institution is listed at 488 worldwide, a third independent measure of its international standing.在 2026-2027 年度 US News 全球最佳大学排名中，该校列全球第 488 位，提供第三种独立的国际评价。

• The 2026 Shanghai Ranking Academic Ranking of World Universities places it in the 301-400 band, the highest of its four global league-table positions for the current cycle.在 2026 年软科世界大学学术排名中，该校列入第 301-400 位，是本轮四份世界主榜中最高的名次。

• The university carries no published subject-level band in these global tables, but the UNIRANKS world table ranked it 11th among universities in Saudi Arabia in 2025.上述世界主榜未公布其学科维度名次，但 2025 年 UNIRANKS 世界大学排行榜将其列在沙特阿拉伯高校中的第 11 位。

• Its disciplinary reach spans medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, computer science and the humanities across 34 colleges, a breadth that shapes its aggregate ranking rather than a single field.其学科覆盖医、牙、药、护理、计算机与人文等门类共 34 个学院，这种广度决定其综合排名，而非某一单项学科。

• As a research database count is not recorded here, its scale is measured by 34 colleges, more than 5,000 staff, about 600 buildings and a library holding over 2 million books.因研究数据库计量未被收录，其体量改以 34 个学院、逾 5000 名员工、约 600 栋建筑与逾 200 万册馆藏来衡量。

• The quantitative baseline for the institution is its 13 million square metre campus built for 60,000 students, an 11.5 kilometre internal metro and a 2,700-seat national-scale auditorium.该校可核验的量化基线是占地 1300 万平方米、按 6 万人规模建设的校园，以及 11.5 公里的校内地铁与 2700 座的国家级礼堂。

• Its hardest honours are national firsts rather than global prizes, being the first women's university of the kingdom, the world's largest, the first to host an opera in 2017 and the first to open a women's driving school in 2018.其最硬的荣誉属全国首创而非国际大奖，包括王国第一所女子大学、全球规模最大者、2017 年首演歌剧以及 2018 年开设首座女子驾校。

Student life

• The campus is presented as a self-contained city that lets students study, live, shop and travel by automated metro without ever leaving the grounds of the women's university.校园被塑造为一座自足之城，学生可在努拉公主大学之内求学、居住、购物并乘自动地铁出行，无需离开校园。

• Accommodation takes the form of large-capacity student residencies and varied faculty housing units, part of a residential plan built for a campus too big to cross on foot.住宿采用大容量学生宿舍与多种教职员住宅的形式，是一套为面积过大、步行难越的校园而设计的居住规划。

• Restaurants, cafes, banquet halls, a bookstore, a pharmacy, a supermarket and a bank sit among the colleges, while meeting rooms and offices serve clubs and student councils.餐厅、咖啡厅、宴会厅、书店、药房、超市与银行散布于各学院之间，会议室与办公室则供社团及学生会使用。

• Media and screening rooms and a range of student clubs support cultural life, the same venues that in 2017 hosted the first public opera staged anywhere in Saudi Arabia.传媒与放映室及多个学生社团支撑校园文化生活，2017 年沙特史上第一场公开歌剧正是在这些场地中上演。

• Student support is channelled through clubs and student councils with dedicated offices, giving the all-female body a formal voice within the deanships that run campus affairs.学生事务经由配有专门办公室的社团与学生会传达，使这支全女生群体在管理校务的各事务处中拥有正式发言权。

• The women's driving school opened in early 2018 turned a national policy change into campus practice, with tens of thousands of students expected to learn to drive on the site.2018 年初开设的女子驾校把一项国家政策变化落实为校园实践，预计有数以万计的学生在校内学车。

• Sport is treated as a growth area, and the 2016 agreement with the General Authority for Sports aims to push everyday participation to 40 percent by 2030 across the kingdom.体育被视为重点增长领域，2016 年与体育总局的协议力求把日常运动参与率在全国推高至 2030 年的 40%。

• An international dimension reaches the campus through the Arabic Language Institute, which draws over 350 non-native students from more than 40 countries onto the Riyadh grounds.阿拉伯语学院把国际元素引入校园，为利雅得校区带来来自 40 余国的 350 多名非母语学生。

Notable people

• The founding era was that of King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, under whose reign the first College of Education for women opened in 1970 and female higher education in the kingdom began.创办时期对应费萨尔国王在位，正是在其治下，第一所女子师范学院于 1970 年开学，沙特女子高等教育由此发端。

• King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, granted the institution university status in 2008 and personally opened its new campus in June 2011.两圣地监护人阿卜杜拉国王于 2008 年授予该校大学地位，并于 2011 年 6 月亲自为新校区揭幕。

• The university is named for Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman, the elder sister and trusted adviser of King Abdulaziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, whose Arabic name means light.校名取自努拉公主，她是现代沙特创建者阿卜杜勒-阿齐兹国王的姐姐与心腹谋臣，其名在阿拉伯语中意为光明。

• Her father Abdul Rahman bin Faisal was the last emir of the Second Saudi State, so the namesake of the university belonged to the senior branch of the ruling family.努拉公主之父阿卜杜勒-拉赫曼·本·费萨尔是第二沙特酋长国的末代埃米尔，故校名人物出自统治家族嫡长一系。

• Princess Al Jawhara bint Fahd Al Saud served as the first rector of the renamed university, guiding it from a federation of separate colleges into the single campus city.法赫德之女贾瓦哈拉公主出任更名后的首任校长，将学校由独立学院联盟带入统一校园之城。

• King Salman bin Abdulaziz issued the 2018 order granting women the right to drive, the decision that let the university open the kingdom's first driving school for women.萨勒曼国王于 2018 年颁布准许女性驾车的命令，正是这一决定使该校得以开设全国第一所女子驾校。

• No Nobel, Turing or Fields-level affiliate is recorded for the institution, and its standing rests instead on being the world's largest women's university and the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia.该校未见诺贝尔奖、图灵奖或菲尔兹奖级人物关联，其地位建立在它是全球最大、沙特同类第一的女子大学之上。

• The static record names the royal patrons and the first rector but lists no individual faculty member, alumnus or sportswoman, so the biographical dimension of the university remains institutional.静态材料只记王室赞助人与首任校长，未列具体教师、校友或运动员，故该校的人物维度仍停留在机构层面。

• Its international partnerships connect the campus to the University of Auckland, Monash University, Dublin City University, Rouen University, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Valencia College, though no partner individual is named.其国际伙伴将校园与奥克兰大学、莫纳什大学、都柏林城市大学、鲁昂大学、伊拉斯谟鹿特丹大学及瓦伦西亚学院相连，但未点名任何合作个人。