張祖平

“Where is the university？” This is a question that many visitors to Cambridge ask. But no one can give them a clear answer， for there is no wall to be found around the university. The university is the city. You can find classroom buildings， libraries， museums and offices of the university all over the city. And most of its members are the students and teachers of the thirty-one colleges.

Cambridge was already a developing town long before the first students and teachers arrived 800 years ago. It grew up by the river Granta， and the river was once called the Cam. A bridge was built over the river as early as 875. So the town got its name “Cambridge”.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries， more and more land was used for college buildings. The town grew much faster in the nineteenth century after the opening of the railway in 1845. Cambridge became a city in 1951 and now it has a population of over 100，000. Many young students in other countries hope to study at Cambridge. Thousands of people from all over the world come to visit the university town. It has become a famous place all around the world.

“劍橋大學(xué)在哪里？”這個(gè)一個(gè)很多去劍橋的游客都會(huì)問(wèn)的問(wèn)題。但是沒(méi)有人能給出一個(gè)清楚的答案，因?yàn)閯虼髮W(xué)沒(méi)有圍墻。這個(gè)大學(xué)就是一座城市。你能在市內(nèi)隨處可見(jiàn)大學(xué)的教學(xué)樓、圖書(shū)館、博物館和辦公室，這些地方的大部分人是這31個(gè)學(xué)院的學(xué)生和老師。

800年前，首批學(xué)生和教師來(lái)到劍橋之前，劍橋已經(jīng)是一個(gè)蓬勃發(fā)展的城鎮(zhèn)了。劍橋這個(gè)城鎮(zhèn)是在格蘭塔河畔發(fā)展起來(lái)，而這條河曾經(jīng)叫作“劍河”（音譯，又作康河，徐志摩《再別康橋》中康橋即為劍橋）。早在875年，劍河上就修了一座橋，所以這個(gè)城鎮(zhèn)才得名——?jiǎng)颉?/p>

在14世紀(jì)和15世紀(jì)，越來(lái)越多的土地用于劍橋大學(xué)的建筑。1845年，鐵路開(kāi)建，劍橋的發(fā)展速度愈發(fā)加快。1951年，劍橋升級(jí)為市，現(xiàn)在有10萬(wàn)多人口。很多外國(guó)的年輕學(xué)生都希望到劍橋?qū)W習(xí)。全球各地成千上萬(wàn)的人來(lái)參觀(guān)這座大學(xué)城，劍橋已經(jīng)成為了世界上一個(gè)著名的地方。