Southwest University was formed by the merger of Southwest Normal University directly under the former Ministry of Education and Southwest Agricultural University directly under the former Ministry of Agriculture. The original two schools were built adjacent to each other and have the same origin, both of which can be traced back to the East Sichuan Normal School established in 1906. Several generations later, it was renamed Sichuan Education College on 1936. 1950, the departments of education, Chinese, foreign languages, history, geography and mathematics of Sichuan Institute of Education merged with the National Women's Teachers College established in 1940 to form Southwest Normal College, and its departments of agronomy, horticulture and agricultural products manufacturing merged with the private Xianghui College established in 1946 to form Southwest Agricultural College. From 65438 to 0985, the two schools were renamed Southwest Normal University and Southwest Agricultural University respectively. In 2005, Southwest Normal University and Southwest Agricultural University merged to form the present Southwest University.
Southwest University is a university directly under the central government, one of the 72 universities directly under the Ministry of Education, one of the eight key universities determined by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture, one of the six pilot universities for free normal education in China, one of the first batch of pilot universities for the reform of the national education system, one of the four key universities in the regional planning and deployment of Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone, and the first batch of authorized units for doctoral and master's degrees in China. National independent selection and admission reform pilot colleges and universities; Excellent universities in undergraduate teaching evaluation of the Ministry of Education; It is the leading unit of Chongqing film, the national college students' cultural quality education base; It is one of the 60 cooperative universities in the national high-level university postgraduate construction project and one of the founding schools of Chongqing University Alliance.