Two Bangladeshi universities have been ranked in the best 200 Asian universities for the first time in Times Higher Education's (THE) Asia University Rankings.

Dhaka University has been ranked 186th and North South University 192nd THE Asia University Rankings 2023.

THE released the 11th edition of its Asia University Rankings on Thursday, which ranks 669 universities from 31 countries or regions with two universities from China taking first and second positions.

With the latest ranking, DU's position has seen consistent improvement for four years in a row. The oldest university of the country was placed 251-300 in the last year’s ranking, 351-400 in 2011 and 401+ in 2020.

This is the best rank DU or any other Bangladeshi university achieved in THE Asia University Rankings published every year since 2013. The only time DU made it to the top 200 Asian universities was in 191-200th band in 2016.

DU's position was improved this year mainly due to increase in score in citations. The university scored 85.9 in citations while it scored 61.8 in this area last year.

DU scored 17.7 in teaching category (18.7 last year), 10.3 in research (10.1 last year), 43.3 in international outlook (42.6 last year) and 37.3 in industry income (35.2 in previous year's ranking).

The overall score achieved by DU is 39.3, up from 29.7-32.3 last year.

NSU has made it to THE Asian University Rankings for the first time this year. The premier private university of the country was ranked 192nd scoring 38.9.

NSU scored 87.8 in citations category, 15.1 in teaching, 11.5 in research, 34.8 in international outlook and 37 in industry income.

Three other Bangladeshi universities were listed in this year's ranking.

Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) all placed between 401-500.

18 universities from India and 10 from Pakistan have been ranked in the top 200 this year.

For the fourth year in a row Tsinghua University and Peking University in China take the first and second positions followed by National University of Singapore, University of Hong Kong and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.