Southwest Jiaotong University is a national key university directly under the Ministry of Education. It is one of the first research universities with graduate schools, such as "Double First Class", "2 1 1 Project", "Special 985 Project" and "201Collaborative Innovation Plan". It is located in Chengdu, a famous historical and cultural city in China and a national central city.

The school was founded in 1896, formerly known as Shanhaiguan China Imperial Railway Institute. It is the first engineering education institution of higher learning in China, the birthplace of higher education in civil engineering, mining and metallurgy engineering and traffic engineering in China, and one of the two earliest sources of Jiaotong University.

The school is well-known at home and abroad as "Tangshan Jiaotong University" and "Tangyuan" and is known as "Oriental Cornell". President Mao Zedong wrote the name of the school. Since its establishment, the school has been named as Tangshan Institute of Technology (Engineering) of Jiaotong University, Guizhou Branch of Jiaotong University, China Jiaotong University, Northern Jiaotong University and Tangshan Railway Institute.

1952, the adjustment of colleges and departments in colleges and universities nationwide, and some faculty teachers were transferred to brother colleges such as Tsinghua and Tianjin University. 1964 moved to Sichuan in accordance with the spirit of "three lines" built by the central government, 1972 was renamed Southwest Jiaotong University, and 1989 moved to Chengdu. Jiuli, Xipu and Emei have three campuses, covering an area of more than 5,000 mu, with Xipu campus as the main campus.