Yuelu Academy (岳麓书院) stands at the eastern foot of Yuelu Mountain on the west bank of the Xiang, opposite Changsha's old city. Founded in 976 by a Song prefect on the site of an earlier monastic school, it became one of the four great academies of classical China and the home of the Huxiang school of Neo-Confucianism. In 1903 it was converted into a modern school and in 1926 became part of Hunan University, which still teaches inside the restored compound. Its 21,000 square metres of halls are the largest and best-preserved academy complex surviving in China.
Yuelu Academy was founded in 976 below Yuelu Mountain and never stopped teaching. Its founders, its masters and the university that grew out of the compound are the three stages of one school's long continuity.