It has an area of 1148 hectares and is the largest public university.

The second largest was Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) with an area size of 1108.103 hectares.

It is about 20 km north of the state capital, Johor Bahru.

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities places UTM in the fourth place in the South East Asia Region, and the top in Malaysia.

[8] The alumni of University of Technology Malaysia include politicians and public service officials such as Wee Ka Siong, former Malaysian Minister of Transport, Annuar Musa, former Malaysian Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Hamzah Zainudin, former Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs, Saarani Mohamad, current Menteri Besar of Perak, Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani, former Malaysian Inspector-General of Police and former Malaysian Inspector-General of Police and current President of Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, Dominic Lau Hoe Chai.