The Faculty of East Asian Studies was founded in 1965 with the express objective of giving new impetus to research and teaching in the field. The Faculty's study programmes are designed to enable students to address the region comprehensively and across academic disciplines. The focus of both research and teaching is on China, Japan and Korea. Diverse methodological approaches are applied from the fields of history, literature, philology, philosophy, political science, linguistics, and economics.

Because sound language skills are vital for the academic study of East Asia, the Faculty provides comprehensive and in-depth tuition in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, whereby both modern and ancient language forms are taught.

Graduates from the Faculty of East Asian Studies have the linguistic, discipline-specific and cultural skills as well as the analytical capability that qualify them for a wide range of professional fields. Depending on their area of specialisation, our alumni are to be found in the business sector (corporations and banks), in cultural organisations (museums, the media), in education (high school, university, adult education), in institutions of scholarly exchange, in political organisations, the diplomatic service, and in international organisations.

Attached to the Faculty are the Richard Wilhelm Translation Centre, the Research Unit for Taiwanese Culture and Literature, and the Siebold Archive.