China has world's second-largest number of top universities

The 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities released on Wednesday by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy reveals that 62 research universities in China have made their list of the world's top 500 universities.

The 62 universities account for 12.4 percent of the list. The only country with a larger number of universities listed is the United States, which accounts for 27.8 percent.

The University of Tokyo (22nd) and Kyoto University (35th) have maintained their positions as the leading universities in Asia. Tsinghua University came in at 45th place, as the third-highest ranked university in Asia. Peking University took the 57th place in the rankings. Zhejiang University took 67th place in its first appearance in the top 100.

Harvard University topped the rankings for the 16th consecutive year, and Stanford University and University of Cambridge remained in second and third place, respectively.

Every year since 2003, Shanghai Ranking Consultancy has been releasing its rankings of the world top 500 universities based on third-party data. Its Academic Ranking of World Universities is made up of six objective indicators, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of highly-cited researchers, the number of articles published in the journals Nature and Science, the number of articles indexed in the "Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index", and their per capita performance.