Famous throughout the world for its 800-year-old university, Oxford is a centre for learning and research that continues to attract the very best academics from across the globe.

The city also draws tourists from all over the world. More than five million people come to the city every year to visit the university colleges and marvel at the beautiful honey gold buildings with their domes and spires. Matthew Arnold called Oxford the city of 'dreaming spires', and there is indeed something dreamlike about this city on the Thames - or the Isis, as the river is called in Oxford.

Today Oxford is a vibrant cosmopolitan town with a substantial proportion of both students and residents having non-English backgrounds, and a new urbanism has developed with many bars, cafes, restaurants, clubs, ethnic shops and fast food outlets.

Oxford is moving forward in the field of learning too. While it is still rooted in the university's centuries-old traditions of teaching and learning, it is also embracing new knowledge-based industries, and new hi-tech communities are growing up in the science and business parks surrounding the city.

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