With a legacy spanning nine centuries as a place of learning, Oxford’s eponymous university—imprinted on the city itself to the point of being indiscernible from it—offers 350 graduate courses, affiliated societies and hundreds of education-focused organisations and businesses. Students of all kinds continue to pour into the compact city (one of the smallest in our ranking), and first-timers become instantly smitten by the jagged cobblestones, the 500-year-old pubs and the Gothic and neoclassical buildings and spires above, all standing sentry to the enlightenment here. The city’s 40,000 students help Oxford rank #2 in our University subcategory while enjoying the best Green Space ranking in Europe for after-class strolls, just like JRR Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers and Philip Pullman before them. In addition to the usual magnetism of this curated, stewarded urban treasure on the banks of the Thames (called “Isis” locally), new post-pandemic investments are buzzing, from the Randolph Hotel’s reno by new owners Graduate Hotels to East Oxford’s new restaurant wave. There’s also buzz around Oxford United Football Club’s proposal to build a new 16,000-capacity, all-electric stadium at the Triangle site near Kidlington, featuring a convention centre, and a 180-room Radisson-branded hotel, with most guestrooms overlooking the pitch.