Southwest Jiao Tong University is a national key university directly under the Ministry of education. It is built by the Ministry of education, China Railway General Corporation (Ministry of Railways), Sichuan province and Chengdu city. It is the key construction of the first "211 Project" "985 project innovation platform", "111 plan" "2011 plan" and "excellent plan" and has a graduate school. The research university is the main member of the "China France 4+4" "China European elite university alliance", is the "national construction high level university postgraduate project" and the national "collection plan" training colleges and universities, located in the Chinese historical and cultural city, the National Central City - Chengdu.

The school was founded in 1896, the predecessor of Shanhaiguan Beiyang railway official school, the first engineering institution of higher learning in China, the birthplace of China's civil engineering, traffic engineering, mining and Metallurgy Engineering, one of the first two major sources of Transportation University, and renowned at home and abroad with the name of "Tangshan Jiaotong" and "Tang Yuan". Comrade Mao Zedong is the school The title of the school is inscribed. The school has been named "Tangshan Transportation University", "Jiaotong University of Tangshan Engineering College", "China Transportation University" "Northern Jiaotong University" and "Tangshan Railway College" and so on. In 1964, it moved to Sichuan and changed its name to Southwest Jiao Tong University in 1972. In the course of 121 years of running a school, there are 3 "two bombs and one star Merit Medal", 59 academicians at home and abroad, and 24 national engineering survey and design masters from the school. Mao Yisheng, a famous bridge expert, is an outstanding representative of Jiaotong University graduate. He has been teaching for a long time and has served 4 times as president of his alma mater.

There are three schools in Xipu, nine Li and Emei, with an area of more than 5000 mu, more than 5 people with teachers and students, 25 colleges, 2 affiliated hospitals, 2 foreign graduate schools (Qingdao, Tangshan), and 7 million volumes of the "Mao Yisheng library" (4 million books).

Transportation and transportation engineering ranks first in the country. In 2017, the ranking of China's top universities showed that schools ranked the thirty-fifth in China.