The university was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra,[2][3][4][5] then minister of education in the Porfirio Díaz regime, who sought to create a very different institution from its 19th-century precursor, the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, which had been founded on 21 September 1551 by a royal decree signed by Crown Prince Phillip II on behalf of Charles I of Spain[21] and brought to a definitive closure in 1865 by Maximilian I of Mexico.

[22][23] Instead of reviving what he saw as an anachronistic institution with strong ties to the Roman Catholic Church,[24] he aimed to merge and expand Mexico City's decentralized colleges of higher education (including former faculties of the old university) and create a new university, secular in nature and national in scope, that could reorganize higher education within the country, serve as a model of positivism and encompass the ideas of the dominant Mexican liberalism.

[3] The project initially unified the Fine Arts, Business, Political Science, Jurisprudence, Engineering, Medicine, Normal, and the National Preparatory schools;[25] its first rector was Joaquin Eguía y Lis.

This opposition led to disruptions in the function of the university when political instability forced resignations in the government, including that of President Díaz.

Internally, the first student strike occurred in 1912 to protest examination methods introduced by the director of the School of Jurisprudence, Luis Cabrera Lobato.

In 1921, he created the school's coat-of-arms: the image of an eagle and a condor surrounding a map of Latin America, from Mexico's northern border to Tierra del Fuego, and the motto, "The Spirit shall speak for my people".

The government attempted to implement socialist education at Mexican universities, which Gómez Morín, many professors, and Catholics opposed as an infringement on academic freedom.

Gómez Morín with the support of the Jesuit-founded student group, the Unión Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos, successfully fought against socialist education.

The construction of UNAM's central campus was the original idea of two students from the National School of Architecture in 1928: Mauricio De Maria y Campos[47] and Marcial Gutiérrez Camarena.

It was designed by architects Mario Pani, Armando Franco Rovira, Enrique del Moral, Eugenio Peschard, Ernesto Gómez Gallardo Argüelles, Domingo García Ramos, and others such as Mauricio De Maria y Campos who always showed great interest in participating in the project.

Architects De Maria y Campos, Del Moral, and Pani were given the responsibility as directors and coordinators to assign each architect to each selected building or constructions which enclose the Estadio Olímpico Universitario, about 40 schools and institutes, the Cultural Center, an ecological reserve, the Central Library, the National Library of Mexico and a few museums.

[48] Apart from University City (Ciudad Universitaria), UNAM has several campuses in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City (Acatlán, Aragón, Cuautitlán, Iztacala, and Zaragoza), as well as many others in several locations across Mexico (in Santiago de Querétaro, Morelia, Mérida, Sisal, Ensenada, Cuernavaca, Temixco and Leon), mainly aimed at research and graduate studies.

It is considered to be one of the most significant examples of Mexican architecture of its period, conceived by Manuel Tolsa during de Spanish colonial rule in a neoclassical style (18th century).

Opened in 2021, with the sponsorship of Carlos Slim,[55] the museum hosts a number of permanent exhibits which consist mostly on samples of local flora and fauna from Mexico.

The museum has permanent and temporary art and archaeological exhibitions, in addition to the many murals painted on its walls by José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and others.

[56] The Chopo University Museum possesses an artistic architecture, large crystal panels and two iron towers designed by Gustave Eiffel.

The Museo Experimental El Eco is one of the two buildings by German modern artist Mathias Goeritz and an example of Emotional architecture.

Goeritz was a close collaborator of architect Luis Barragán and author of several public sculptures including the Torres de Satélite.

The building was acquired and renovated by the National University in 2004 and since 2005 it exhibits contemporary art and a yearly architecture competition Pabellón Eco.

The National Astronomical Observatory is located in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir mountain range in Baja California, about 130 km south of United States-Mexican border.

[79] Despite the low percentage of funding invested in research and development in Mexico,[80] the UNAM stands out as a research-oriented university with international competitiveness across all fields of knowledge.

In recent years, it has attracted students and hired professional scientists from all over the world, most notably from Europe, other countries in Latin America, India, and the United States, creating a unique and diverse scientific community.

[84][85][86][87]Scientific research at UNAM is divided between colleges, institutes, centers, and schools, and covers a range of disciplines in Latin America.

The team maintains an historic fierce rivalry with the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) football program, the "Águilas Blancas" (White Eagles), due to both of them being the biggest public universities in the country.

As rector of the university, he expressed the importance of ending the oppression and the bloody confrontations of yesteryear, with the new battlefields being those of culture and education, as means to achieve a new era of unification of Latin Americans.

The author of this famous phrase, José Vasconcelos, assumed the rectory in 1920, within the framework of the Latin American University Reform, and at a time when the hopes of the Mexican Revolution were still alive; There was a great faith in the homeland, and the redemptive spirit extended into the environment.

It "means in this motto the conviction that our race will elaborate a culture of new tendencies, of spiritual and free essence", explained the "Master of America" when presenting the proposal.

The university commissioned the design to Manuel Andrade Rodríguez, as part of the renovation of the General Directorate of Sports and Recreation Activities.

[90] The image type consists of the face of a puma in gold, made from the silhouette of a closed fist, on a blue triangle with rounded corners.

The university has an annual tradition to make a large display of Day of the Dead offerings (Spanish: ofrenda) all over the main square of Ciudad Universitaria.