Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering is a Guangdong provincial university striving for coordinated development of agriculture, engineering, science, economics, management, literature, arts, law and other disciplines.

Located in Guangzhou, a famous historical and cultural city, it has two campuses in the Haizhu and Baiyun districts, with a total area of around 117.59 hectares.

The university, formerly known as Zhongkai Agricultural and Industrial School, was proposed by He Xiangning, one of the pioneers of China’s democratic revolution, during the first cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China. It was founded by the Central Committee of the Kuomintang to commemorate Liao Zhongkai's intention of caring for peasants and workers.

The school started recruitment in 1927 with He serving as its first president for 15 years. In 1984, approved by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, the school was upgraded to an undergraduate institution and named the Zhongkai Institute of Agricultural Technology. In March 2008, it was renamed as Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering.

To win support from all walks of life and promote the university’s development, in April 1987, as proposed by Wang Zhen, then vice-president of China, and approved by the CPC Guangdong provincial committee, a school board was established. Wang served as its honorary chairman, and Ye Xuanping, then governor of Guangdong province, served as chairman of its first board of directors. Since then, the chairman of the school board has been the incumbent governor of Guangdong, currently Ma Xingrui. Members of the board include state leaders, provincial and ministerial officials, and celebrities from Hong Kong and Macao.

Personalities from all walks of life at home and abroad who have deep respect and admiration for Liao and He and their pioneering careers have offered strong support for the development of the university. A number of social elites in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions have donated funds to build laboratory buildings, libraries and academic buildings, purchase equipment for teaching, research and medical care, and set up teaching awards and scholarships.

The university has 1,420 full-time teachers at present, 37.97 percent of whom have a doctorate. It has introduced academicians, scientists, national and provincial outstanding teachers, and scientific and technological innovation teams. The university library has a collection of 1.25 million volumes, 41,600 electronic books, and 43 digital resource libraries of various types.

The university was authorized to issue master's degrees in January 2006 and was rated as an excellent undergraduate teaching institution by China’s Ministry of Education in January 2009.

It now has 17 secondary schools, one teaching department and the largest IELTS testing center in South China. In addition, it has one post-doctoral research workstation, one doctoral workstation, nine first-level disciplines authorized to offer master's degrees, five categories of master's degrees and 62 undergraduate programs. The university enrolls students from 16 provinces and municipalities across the country, and has 23,733 full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The university boasts four Guangdong provincial key disciplines, three provincial characteristic disciplines, six disciplines with set posts for Guangdong Province Universities and Colleges Pearl River scholars, two provincial key laboratories, 53 provincial scientific research platforms and 27 provincial quality courses and shared courses.

Over recent years, the university has had 33 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and three funded by the National Social Science Foundation, and has won two second prizes of the National Awards for Science and Technology Progress, 12 second prizes and four third prizes of the Guangdong Science and Technology Award, one first prize of the Science and Technology Award of the Ministry of Education, and two first prizes, 13 second prizes and eight third prizes of the Guangdong Agricultural Technology Promotion Award. It has also been awarded 632 authorized patents and had 699 papers included in the Science Citation Index, Ei Compendex and the Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings, and published 69 academic monographs.

For more than 90 years since its establishment the university has cultivated a large number of talents for China’s economic and social development, including grassroots-level agricultural technical staff, experts, scholars, and provincial and ministerial officials. Zeng Yitao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Chen Yaobang, former Minister of Agriculture of China, are outstanding representatives among them.