The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University or Birmingham) is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School (1825) and Mason Science College (1875). Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus university status.

It is a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research universities and a founding member of Universitas 21. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) data places Birmingham in the 12 elite institutions in England, whilst The Daily Telegraph has described it as part of the English "Ivy League".

The student population includes around 16,500 undergraduate and 8,000 postgraduate students, making it the largest university in the West Midlands region, and the 11th largest in the UK. As of 2006-07 it is the fourth most popular English university by number of applications. In 2010 Birmingham was ranked as the 10th most popular British university by graduate employers. The annual income of the institution for 2007-08 was £411.6 million, with an expenditure of £393.2 million. Birmingham has the ninth largest financial endowment of any British university at approximately £85 million in 2009.

Birmingham (ⁱ/ˈbɜrmɪŋəm/ BUR-ming-əm, locally /ˈbɜrmɪŋɡəm/ BUR-ming-gəm) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 (2010 estimate), and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a population of 2,284,093 (2001 census). Birmingham's metropolitan area is also the United Kingdom's second most populous with a population of 3,683,000.

A medium-sized market town during the medieval period, Birmingham grew to international prominence in the 18th century at the heart of the Midlands Enlightenment and subsequent Industrial Revolution, which saw the town at the forefront of worldwide developments in science, technology and economic organisation, producing a series of innovations that laid many of the foundations of modern industrial society. By 1791 it was being hailed as "the first manufacturing town in the world". Birmingham's distinctive economic profile, with thousands of small workshops practising a wide variety of specialised and highly-skilled trades, encouraged exceptional levels of creativity and innovation and provided a diverse and resilient economic base for industrial prosperity that was to last into the final quarter of the 20th century. Its resulting high level of social mobility also fostered a culture of broad-based political radicalism, that under leaders from Thomas Attwood to Joseph Chamberlain was to give it a political influence unparalleled in Britain outside London and a pivotal role in the development of British democracy.