University of Malaya, the first University of the country, is situated on a 750-acre (309-hectare) campus in the southwest of Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. The University of Malaya grew out of a tradition of service to the society. Its predecessors, the King Edward VII College of Medicine established in 1905 and Raffles College in 1929, has been established to meet urgent demands, one in medicine and the other in education.

When the two came together to form the University of Malaya in October 1949, this was so that they might perform together an even greater service – to help lay the foundations of a new nation by producing a generation of skilled and educated men. Hence the University of Malaya was established on 8 October 1949 as a national institution to serve the higher education needs of the Federation of Malaya and Singapore.