Xidian University is a national key university with disciplines of information and electronics as the major ones and with coordinated development of multi-disciplines of engineering, science, management, and arts, which is underthe direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. It is one of the key institutions of higher learning under construction according to the national "211" Project, one of the 56 universities which have set up graduate schools, one of the 37 universities which have established demonstrative software schools, and one of the 20 universities which have been given approval to found IC talents training bases.

Its predecessor was the Radio School of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee set up in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province in 1931, which was the first school of engineering and technology personally founded by the older generation of revolutionaries of Mao Zedong and others. It moved to Xi'an in 1958 and was turned from the organizational system of the army to the civilian one in 1966. It got the present name in 1988.

In the 80 years since its founding, Xidian University has always been attached great importance to by the Party and the state, and it was one of the key construction projects of the national "First Five Year Plan", and also one of 20 key universities of the first batch approved by the Central Government in 1959. In the 1960s, Xidian University was famous throughout the world for its name of "XIJUNDIAN" (short for "the Xian Military Telecommunications Engineering Institute"). Comrade Mao Zedong successively wrote inscriptions twice for Xidian University: "Serve the People Wholeheartedly" and "Be Hardworking and Plain-living".

Now the University has constructed two campuses: The north campus and the south campus, which occupy an area of 4000 mu (about 267 hectares), with the school building area of over 1.3 million square meters. Its two libraries have 4.2 million books. Presently, the University has more than 30000 students, of whom there are over 1700 doctoral students and over 8100 master students. It has set up 14 schools, that is, School of Telecommunications Engineering, School of Electronic Engineering, School of Computer Science and Technology, School of Mechano-electronic Engineering, School of Technical Physics, School of Economics and Management, School of Science, School of Humanities and Arts, Demonstrative Software School, School of Microelectronics, School of International Education, School of Life Science and Technology, School of Network and Continuing Education, and Chang'an College.