Shanxi University is not a double first-class institution. Shanxi University, located in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province, is an institution of higher learning with a long history and profound cultural heritage. On May 8th, 1902, Shanxi University Hall was officially opened, which, together with Shi Jing University Hall (Peking University) and Beiyang University Hall (Tianjin University), initiated a new era of modern higher education in China. In May 2005, Shanxi University became a provincial university jointly established by Shanxi Provincial People's Government and Ministry of Education. In the course of running a school for more than 100 years, Shanxi University has formed a cultural tradition of "integrating Chinese and Western cultures, seeking truth from facts, worshiping goodness and serving the country, and constantly striving for self-improvement" and an excellent school spirit of "diligence, preciseness, honesty and innovation".

Shanxi University is the only comprehensive university with complete disciplines in Shanxi. The school has philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, management and other disciplines. There are 65 undergraduate majors, 18 double-degree majors, 137 master's programs, 6 professional master's programs, 48 doctoral programs and 4 postdoctoral mobile stations. It has two national key disciplines, philosophy of science and technology and optics, 20 provincial key disciplines and key construction disciplines; Philosophy of science and technology research center, key research base of humanities and social sciences of the Ministry of Education, and key research bases of humanities and social sciences in three provinces; State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Optical Quantum Devices, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Molecular Engineering, Key Laboratory of Computational Intelligence and Chinese Information Processing, and 3 provincial key laboratories; Excellent innovation team of the Ministry of Education and two provincial excellent innovation teams. The school also has a national scientific basic research and teaching talent training base, a national college student cultural quality education base, a national language education base and a national vocational education teacher training base set up by the Ministry of Education.