Khallikote Unitary University, Berhampur is a state public university in Odisha that combines a twenty-first-century university structure with the legacy of one of the state’s oldest centres of higher learning. The institution’s origins reach back to 1856, when a Zilla School was established in Berhampur. It became an intermediate college in 1878, was known for a period as Native College, and was renamed Khallikote College in 1893 in recognition of the support of the Raja of Khallikote. Degree teaching in arts and science began in 1944, followed by further expansion of commerce, mathematics and postgraduate education. The college came under government management in 1971, gained autonomous status in 1990 and later developed a strong range of undergraduate and postgraduate departments. In 2021, the Government of Odisha upgraded the existing Khallikote Autonomous College into Khallikote Unitary University, which began functioning from 1 August that year. This transformation preserved the historic campus and academic traditions while giving the institution independent university status. Today its teaching spans humanities, languages, social sciences, commerce and natural sciences, supported by long-established departments and a strong regional alumni tradition. The university’s identity is unusually layered: its formal university history is recent, but its academic heritage extends across more than a century of institutional change. Khallikote has also been associated with prominent alumni in public life, judiciary and national service. As a unitary university, it focuses on its own campus-based teaching, research and academic development rather than a broad external affiliation network. Its continuing role is to combine the cultural and educational legacy of historic Khallikote College with modern university-level research, digital learning, quality assurance and multidisciplinary higher education for southern Odisha. The university’s Berhampur location also preserves an important educational landmark for southern Odisha, where generations of students studied long before the institution gained university status, giving academic development strong historical continuity.