The USC is heir to more than five hundred years of teaching, research, dissemination of knowledge and cultural creation. Compostela has been a university city since 1495 and the headquarters of the current Galician University System, of which since 1989 it is part of, together with the University of Vigo and the University of A Coruña.
In its long history, the University of Santiago de Compostela has amassed a great cultural and scientific heritage, and its campuses have an abundant natural and architectural heritage.