McGill University is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by a royal charter granted by King George IV, the university bears the name of James McGill, a Scottish merchant whose bequest in 1813 formed the university's precursor, the University of McGill College (or simply, McGill College); the name was officially changed to McGill University in 1885.

McGill's main campus is on the slope of Mount Royal in downtown Montreal in the borough of Ville-Marie, with a second campus situated in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, also on Montreal Island, 30 kilometers (19 mi) west of the main campus. The university is one of two universities outside the United States which are members of the Association of American Universities, alongside the University of Toronto, and it is the only Canadian member of the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF) within the World Economic Forum.

McGill offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study, with the highest average entering grades of any Canadian university. Most students are enrolled in the five largest faculties, namely Arts, Science, Medicine, Education, Engineering, and Management. McGill is ranked among the world's top universities by major educational publications, and it has held the top position in the country for the past 16 years in the annual Maclean's Canadian University Rankings.