Faculty of Arts

The Faculty of Arts is one of the flagship faculties of the University of Hong Kong and one of the finest humanities faculties in the region and internationally. It was founded in 1912, when the University opened, and it has been a focus of academic life on campus ever since, building on its tradition to meet successive educational and intellectual challenges.

The Faculty attracts and nurtures outstanding scholars and students from around the world through excellence and innovation in teaching, research and knowledge exchange. It provides a comprehensive, humanities and liberal arts research environment, and its strengths include world-class expertise in China- West studies, highly diverse and international academic staff, and a strong culture- and language-based curriculum.

Teachers in the Faculty are committed to excellence in research, which feeds into the broad, liberal education they provide to students and the community. Arts graduates emerge with analytical, linguistic, critical and creative skills, a deep engagement with culture and global awareness, all of which create the foundation for effective leadership and success in a wide range of professional and life endeavours. Over the past century, the Faculty's graduates have made significant contributions in government, the arts, business and other fields in Hong Kong, the region and internationally.

HKU ranked 31st in the world in Arts and Humanities in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Subject Rankings 2020, one of the only four Asian Universities to have made it into the top 40 in this year's exercise which ranked 500 universities worldwide. The University's overall ranking in the Arts & Humanities is 16th in the latest QS World University Subject Rankings in 2019.  The Faculty made the global top 30 in two subjects: Linguistics (11th) and Modern Languages (23rd). In the Research Assessment Exercise 2014 conducted by the University Grants Council, five disciplines – Area Studies, English, Fine Arts, History and Linguistics – were ranked no. 1 of all institutions in Hong Kong.