Yamaguchi University (山口大学, Yamaguchi daigaku) is a national university in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. It has campuses at the cities of Yamaguchi and Ube. The root of the university was Yamaguchi Auditorium (山口講堂, Yamaguchi kōdō), a private school founded by Ueda Hōyō (上田鳳陽, 1769–1853) in 1815. In 1863 the school became a han school of Chōshū Domain and was renamed Yamaguchi Meirinkan. After the Meiji Restoration it became a prefectural secondary school, and in 1894 it developed into (older) Yamaguchi Higher School (山口高等学校, Yamaguchi kōtō gakkō), a national institute of higher education. It served as a preparatory course for the Imperial University. In February 1905 the school was reorganized into Yamaguchi Higher School of Commerce (山口高等商業学校, Yamaguchi kōtō shōgyō gakkō), the third national commercial college in Japan, after Tokyo (1887) and Kobe (1902). In 1944 the school was renamed Yamaguchi College of Economics.