"Where is the university?" This is a question that many visitors to Cambridge ask. But no one can give them a right answer, because people cannot find any walls around the university. The university is the city. You can find classroom buildings, libraries. museums and offices of the university all over the city. And most of its members are the students and teachers of the thirty-one colleges.
Cambridge was already a town long before the first students and teachers arrived 800 years ago. It was near the river Granta, and the river's name was the Cam. A bridge was built over the river as early as 875. So the town got its name "Cambridge".
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more and more land was used for college buildings. The town grew much faster in the nineteenth century after the opening of the railway in 1845. Cambridge became a city in 1951 and now it has a population of over 100,000. Many young students in other countries want to study at Cambridge. Thousands of people from all over the world come to visit the university town. It is a famous place all around the world now.
