Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well as 100 specializations in humanities, technical, and natural sciences.

Among the university's notable alumni are heads of state, prime ministers, Nobel Prize laureates, including Sir Joseph Rotblat and Olga Tokarczuk, as well as several historically important individuals in their respective fields, such as Frédéric Chopin, Hilary Koprowski, Bohdan Paczyński, Bolesław Prus, Wacław Sierpiński, Alfred Tarski, L. L. Zamenhof and Florian Znaniecki.

In 1795, the partitions of Poland left Warsaw with access only to the Academy of Vilnius when the oldest and most influential Polish academic center, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, became part of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy.

In 1815, the newly established semi-autonomous polity of Congress Poland found itself without a university at all, as Vilnius was incorporated into the Russian Empire.

In 1816, Alexander I permitted the Polish authorities to create a university, comprising five departments: Law and Administration, Medicine, Philosophy, Theology, and Art and Humanities.

In accordance with the concept of Mitteleuropa, the Germans permitted several Polish social and educational societies to be recreated, including the University of Warsaw.

It was reformed; all the important posts (the rector, senate, deans and councils) became democratically elected, and the state spent considerable amounts of money to modernize and equip it.

However, the financial problems of the newly reborn state did not allow for free education, and students had to pay a tuition fee for their studies (an average monthly salary, for a year).

[16] After the Polish Defensive War of 1939 the German authorities of the General Government closed all the institutions of higher education in Poland.

A large part of the collection of priceless works of art and books donated to the university was either destroyed or transported to Germany, never to return.

Many professors were arrested by the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (Secret Police), the books were censored and ideological criteria in employment of new lecturers and admission of students were introduced.

On the other hand, education in Poland became free of charge and the number of young people to receive the state scholarships reached 60% of all the students.

A political struggle within the communist party prompted Zenon Kliszko to ban the production of Dziady by Mickiewicz at the Teatr Narodowy, leading to 1968 Polish political crisis coupled with anti-Zionist and anti-democratic campaign and the outbreak of student demonstrations in Warsaw, which were brutally crushed – not by police, but by the ORMO reserve militia squads of plain-clothed workers.

It is home to the departments of chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, computer science, and geology, and contains several other university buildings such as the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling, the Environmental Heavy Ion Laboratory that houses a cyclotron and a facility for the production of PET radiopharmaceuticals, and a sports facility.

Several new buildings have been constructed within this campus in recent years, and the Department of Physics moved here from its previous location at Hoża Street.