Gazi University is one of the few universities whose history dates back to 1920s. Right after the declaration of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his friends decided to establish an institute. This resulted in the establishment of the 'Teacher Training Institute' in 1926.

In 1929 the institute was given the name 'Gazi Teacher Training Institute' and continued to educate students under this name for many years. In the Academic year 1949-1950 the institution was given the name 'Gazi Institute of Education'.

In 1982, with the act number 2809 the institution gets the name Gazi University together with Ankara Academy of Economy and Commerce, Ankara College of Technical Teachers, Ankara Girls' College of Technical Teachers and Ankara Government Academy of Engineering and Architecture. Actually this university is the continuation of the tradition starting with Republic with a new name.

Apart from Gazi Faculty of Education, the academies mentioned above play an important role in the establishment of the university. Ankara Academy of Economics and Commerce was already like a university when it was joined to Gazi University. In those days, the Departments of Medicine Dentistry, Pharmacology and Communication were all a part of this academy.

Ankara Academy of State Engineering and Architecture is also included in Gazi University.

When it was first built it had 9 faculties, 12 colleges and 4 institutes but the number of these units increase.

Today, Gazi University carries out its educational and research activities with its 14 faculties, 5 colleges, 9 Vocational High Schools, 35 research centers and 5 institutes and it still claims it is a higher education institution which is worthy to Atatürk.

The university has faculties of Education, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Engineering and Architecture, Economics and Administrative, Communation, Science and Arts, Law, Fine Arts.

Being the leader of the country with its education faculties, Gazi University has faculties of Industrial Arts, Gazi Education, Vocational Education, Technical Education, Commerce and Tourism

In addition to the students from all around the country Gazi has also more than 1500 foreign students from Turkic states. It also meets the needs of academic staff of other universities with more than 5 thousand students in master and PhD programmes.

Gazi University carries out its education in different campuses. Having three campus called Besevler, Emek and Maltepe in Ankara.

With its 50 thousand students and more than 3000 academic staff the university is close to the world average in terms of the number of students per instructor.
Gazi is one of the big universities with its faculties from education to communication, from fine arts to engineering, sports to forestry, medicine to pharmacy, dentistry to science and arts, economics to technology.