Yanbian University was founded in March,1949. It is a local comprehensive university with national characteristics and a key university in Jilin Province. In December, it was approved by the State Department of " 211 Project " to be one of a hundred universities for Chinese major investments of the 21st century.

Now Yanbian University offers eleven programs of Economics, Philosophy, Law, Pedagogy, Literature, History, Science, Engineering, Agriculture, Medicine, Management and etc. It consists of 12 colleges which offer 63 programs for Bachelor´s degree, 48 programs for the master´s degree, 4 programs for the doctor´s degree with 1 of them national key disciplines, 8 of them provincial key disciplines and 2 of them provincial key constructive disciplines, 4 scientific research institutes and 19 scientific research sections directly under the university and 32 science research institutes combined with departments such as the North-east Asia Research Institute, the Research Institute of Ethnical Issue, the Research Institute of Protection and Exploitation of Changbai Mountain´s Natural Resources and etc.

Now Yanbian University has 16,413 students,including 10,599 undergraduates,712 postgraduates,44 doctoral candidates,384 foreign students and 4,674 adult students. At present,the university employs 1462 full-time teachers of whom 156 are professors,396 are associate professors and 211 are Master´s supervisors and 12 Doctorate supervisors. In addition,the university has invited more than 200 famous experts and scholars from home and abroad to be honorary professors,part-time professors,or guest professors. Since its foundation in 1949,Yanbian University has trained 62,000 talents in a variety of fields.