Today the university is based at the Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans building complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011.

Together with the Austrian administration they formed a separate population group and by the late 19th century, several institutes of higher education arose with the German language of instruction, including Gymnasien in Chernivtsi and Suceava.

As the graduates still had to leave Bukovina to study in the western parts of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the local administration developed plans to found their own university.

In turn, After Lviv University had declared Polish a teaching language in 1871, a Bukovina committee led by the jurist and liberal politician Constantin Tomashchuk (1840–1889), a member of the Imperial Council, called for the foundation of a German college in multilingual Czernowitz about 740 kilometres (460 mi) "beyond" Vienna.

In 1874 they addressed a petition to the Austrian Minister of Education Karl von Stremayr, on whose proposal Emperor Francis Joseph finally resolved upon the establishment of a university, which was decided on by the two houses of the Imperial Council on 13 and 20 March 1875.

One hundred years after the affiliation of Bukovina to the Austrian monarchy, the Franz-Josephs-Universität was inaugurated on 4 October 1875 (the name day of the emperor) on the basis of the Czernowitz Higher Theological School.

At times, there were more than 40 German, Ukrainian, Romanian, Polish, Jewish, and Catholic fraternities (Studentenverbindungen) in the city, reflecting its linguistic and religious diversity.

In World War I, Czernowitz on the Eastern Front was the scene of battle between Austro-Hungarian and Imperial Russian forces, in which the university was severely affected.

[10] As of April 2019[update], the Rector of Chernivtsi National University is Professor Petryshyn Roman Ivanovich, PhD in Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

The architectural ensemble of the main campus of the university, the Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans, is included on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The fund of foreign books contains 376,000 works in German, Romanian, English, Latin, Polish, Ancient Greek, French, Hebraic, Yiddish and other languages.