Stanford University, formally the Leland Stanford Junior University, was established in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford as a memorial to their only child. The institution admitted its first students in 1891 and was unusual for its era in opening as both coeducational and non-denominational. Over the twentieth century it grew from a regional endowed college into one of the principal private research universities in the United States, and it remains a member of the Association of American Universities.

Academic work is organised across seven schools: Humanities and Sciences, Engineering, the Doerr School of Sustainability, Business, Education, Law and Medicine. The School of Humanities and Sciences accounts for the largest share of departments and carries much of the undergraduate curriculum, while the professional schools concentrate on graduate and doctoral study. Total enrolment stands at roughly 17,500 students, with postgraduate registrations somewhat exceeding the undergraduate population, taught by an academic staff of about 2,300. Entry is among the most selective in the country, with only a small fraction of applicants admitted each year.

Research is a defining part of the university's activity: sponsored research expenditure reached approximately $1.82 billion in the 2021/22 financial year, and Stanford operates the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, home to one of the world's longest linear particle accelerators. The university's links with the surrounding technology industry are historically close. Provost Frederick Terman encouraged engineering graduates to establish their own firms during the post-war decades, and the Stanford Research Park, opened in 1951, was the first university research park of its kind; companies including Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Google trace their origins to Stanford students or faculty. The campus covers about 8,180 acres of unincorporated Santa Clara County on the San Francisco Peninsula, between San Francisco and San Jose, at the centre of Silicon Valley.