Having gone a long road of many changes the present University of West Hungary
Seated in Sopron, started functioning with seven faculties from January 1st 2000 as a merger of former Sopron University, Benedek Elek College of Pedagogy, Mosonmagyaróvár Faculty of Agriculture of Pannon University of Agriculture and that of Apáczai Csere János Teacher Training College.

The University of Forestry and Wood Sciences – legal predecessor of Sopron University – originated from a school training mining officers which was founded in Selmecbánya by King Charles III ( Emperor Charles IV) in 1735. It was Queen Maria Theresa who raised the institution to the rank of an academy in 1762. that held a widesreading fame under the denomination of Mining Academy. The Court’s Minting Chamber decided on the establishement of a Forestry School in 1807. The new school was raised to the rank of independent academy. After an education reform stipulated in 1846, it was given the title of Mining and Forestry Academy.
In the year of 1919 Selmecbánya became part of a then- established state, Czechoslovakia, and the Academy moved to Sopron into the building of Military School through the mayor, Frigyes Thurner ’s good offices. Thanks to his decision Sopron could join the rank of university towns conserving its Hungarian national characteristics. The students who had fled into the torwn were armed and their behaviour during the referendum meant a great assistance to the town in its not being torn from Hungary by the Peace Treaty.
In 1922 the Academy was converted to College of Mining and Forestry Engineering, then in 1934 it was turned into Faculty of Mining, Metallurgy and Forestry of the newly established Jozsef Nádor University of Technical and Economic Sciences. In 1949 an independent training of land surveyors started its function. Later the faculties of mining and metallurgy were moved to Miskolc and the surveyors went to Budapest.
In 1952 instructing Forestry Engineering became independent at the College of Forestry Engineering. After the fall/defeat of the revolution in 1956, a high number of intructors/teachers and students emigrated. A significant proportion of them settled in Vancouver (Canada) where they formed/developed a Hungarian division of the forestry Faculty at University of British Columbia.
Lots of them went to the USA, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Hard were the conditions under which education could be continued in Sopron, though losses were somewhat compensated with new possibilities, i.e. institution development. In 1957 training of engineers for the wood industry was introduced and in 1962 the University of Forestry and Wood Sciences was established including faculties of forestry engineering, engineering of wood sciences and from 1972 a faculty of land surveying and mapping at Székesfehérvár has been developed. That is the only college in Hungary where training of land surveyors has been performed on such a high level.
Having followed the changes in the country since 1989, a lot of new courses have been introduced and new institutes established, also a faculty of economics has been launched. Nowadays reseach is done in three princilple fields and teaching is carried out on a dozen basic and two dozen special courses.
As a result of the above widened scope of performance, the university’s actual name became Sopron University in 1996. Rationalisation policies of the Hungarian higher education, and a conscious improvement of the university, its cooperation with the town and region have all led to the formation of the universitas of the region/area that is seated in Sopron, named University of West Hungary.
With the integration the Institute of Economics that was one of the faculties of former Sopron University got the legal right of independent faculty, while the Székesfehérvár college faculty of the university has been turned  to College of Geoinformatics with the introduction of a new course, i.e. real estate registration and management.
Faculties integrated into Sopron University have also had a long historic past.