[6] The university is part of the Double First-Class Construction.

[7] In 1958, under the proposal of Mao Zedong, Xiangtan University was founded in Xiangtan County of Hunan Province, where Mao Zedong was born and grew up.

[15] In 2017, Times Higher Education ranked the university top 800-1000 in the world.

[13] In 2021, Xiangtan University was ranked in the top 1000 universities in the world by a number of international rankings including the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the Times Higher Education, the U.S. News & World Report and the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR).

[20] The Nature Index Annual Tables 2023 by Nature Research ranked Xiangtan University among the top 500 leading universities globally for the high quality of research publications in natural science.