The Plovdiv University "Paisiy Hilendarski" (Bulgarian: "Пловдивски университет „Паисий Хилендарски") is a university located in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It was founded in 1962 and has nine faculties. Plovdiv University, named in honor of the Bulgarian historian Paisiy Hilendarski, is the city’s leading cultural and scientific institution. It is the largest institution of higher education in Southern Bulgaria, and the third largest Bulgarian university, after St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia and St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo. The year 2001 marks the university’s fortieth anniversary. In 1945 the University of Plovdiv was inaugurated by a Decree of the Regents’ Council of August the 4th, promulgated the same year in the State Gazette of August 20, structured in two Faculties: of Medicine and of Agriculture and Forestry, which in July 1961 was reorganized as Higher Teacher-Training Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences. The Institute was promoted to university status by government decree on 12 January 1972, when it took its present name “Paisiy Hilendarski” Plovdiv University.