The University of Kerala is a state public university headquartered in Thiruvananthapuram and one of the oldest modern universities in India. It was founded in 1937 as the University of Travancore through a promulgation of Maharaja Sri Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, who became its first Chancellor. Sir C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar, the Diwan of Travancore, served as the first Vice-Chancellor. After the formation of the state of Kerala, legislation in 1957 renamed the institution the University of Kerala, giving it the identity under which it continues today. The university combines a historic urban presence with a large postgraduate and research campus system. Its Senate House campus is in central Thiruvananthapuram, while the extensive Kariavattom campus accommodates many science, humanities and interdisciplinary departments. Other facilities include separate library, physical-education and specialized campus areas. The university organizes teaching and research through schools, departments and subject faculties spanning arts, languages, social sciences, sciences, education, law, commerce, management and interdisciplinary studies. Its libraries, laboratories, research centres and affiliated-college responsibilities make it a central institution in southern Kerala's higher-education system. The university's territorial role has changed as Kerala's university network expanded. The creation of the University of Calicut in 1968, Cochin University in 1971, Kerala Agricultural University in 1971 and Mahatma Gandhi University in 1983 redistributed institutions and academic jurisdictions that had once fallen within the University of Kerala's wider reach. This evolution transformed it from a university covering large parts of the state into a more regionally focused but academically diversified institution. Its long history links the princely-state era, the creation of modern Kerala and the development of postgraduate research in the state, giving the university a distinctive place in Kerala's intellectual and educational history. The result is an institution whose historical continuity remains visible even as its academic geography and responsibilities have repeatedly changed.