Rankings of universities in China
As of 2020, China had the world's second-highest number of top universities in several most cited international rankings including the QS World University Rankings and U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking. The Double First-Class Universities are considered to be the most elite institutions of Chinese tertiary education, representing the top 5% of overall universities and colleges in Mainland China (approximately 3,000 higher education institutions). Regardless of universities in China being involved in a variety of university rankings, the Ministry of Education of China does not advocate or recognize any ranking  published by other institutions. Rankings distribution. Global. China had the world's second-highest number of top universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the US News and World Report Best Global University Ranking, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities and the Three University Missions Ranking. In the 2021 CWTS Leiden Ranking, China has the largest number of universities including in the ranking with 221 out of 1,225 universities from 69 countries. The University Ranking by Academic Performance 2020-2021 shortlisted 3,000 research universities from 123 countries in  the ranking: China tops the list, with 485 universities. China is also the most-represented nation overall in the SCImago Institutions Rankings list with 549 universities. There were 24 Chinese universities on lists of the global top 200 in the 2021 Shanghai Ranking's ARWU, behind only the United States in terms of the overall representation. Regional. China has dominated the QS BRICS University Rankings and the THE's Emerging Economies University Rankings since its inception, claiming 7 of the top 10 spots for both rankings. China is also the most-represented nation overall. In 2020, China tops the QS  Asia University Rankings list with over 120 universities including in the ranking, and five Chinese universities appear in the Asia Top 10, which is more than any other country. Major International Rankings. Bibliometric-based rankings. Annual international rankings of the bibliometric-based rankings include the "Academic Ranking of World Universities", the "Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities," the "University Ranking by Academic Performance", the "CWTS Leiden Ranking," the "SCImago Institutions Rankings," the "Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), and the Nature Index Annual Tables published by Nature Research." University Ranking By Academic Performance (URAP). A complete ranking of  485 Chinese universities, including in the top 3,000 universities worldwide, can be found through the external link according to the University Ranking by Academic Performance 2020-2021. Opinion-based rankings. A number of international publications formulate their rankings using the weighted average of opinions gathered in surveys, including the "QS World University Rankings", the "Times Higher Education World University Rankings" and the "U.S. News and World Report Best Global University Ranking." Other Global Rankings. Other international rankings in external links: