Nanzan University

Nanzan is named after the forested mountains near Goken'ya-chō (五軒家町), known as Minamiyama (南山), which literally means "southern mountain". The on reading for "南山" is Nanzan. Also, in Chinese poetry "南山" refers to Mount Lushan until the Tang dynasty and Mount Zhongnan thereafter. Notably, the word appears in the classical poetry collection Shi Jing and the works of famous poet Li Bai. Thus, the choice of name is a celebration of longevity, perseverance, and prosperity for both the school and its alumni.

Divine Word Missionary Josef Reiners founded Nanzan Junior High School in 1932. Nanzan Foreign Language School was added to the Nanzan system in 1946. Later, as the Society of the Divine Word appointed Rev. Ralph Thyken, the American representative of Fu Jen Catholic University, to Japan to participate in the establishment of a new Nagoya Catholic University, and Nanzan Foreign Language School was formally renamed Nanzan University in 1949.

Located to the east of the campus is the Divine Word Seminary Chapel, constructed in 1962. This is a building that exploits the plastic capacity of concrete, with two intersecting shells forming a bell tower. These are punctured with vertical slots which allow light to radiate along the curved interior walls.

Nanzan Junior College (南山短期大学, Nanzan Tanki Daigaku) opened in 1968 as a women's junior college affiliated with the university. In 2011 the junior college campus was closed and reorganized as a department on Nanzan University's Nagoya campus offering courses in English language.

In 1995, Nagoya Seirei Junior College was subsumed by Nanzan when the two schools' organizations merged. In 2008, Nanzan planned to open an elementary school, officially named Nanzan University Affiliated Elementary School.

The campus was designed by Antonin Raymond (1988-1976), a Czech-born architect who studied under Frank Lloyd Wright in the United States and was sent to oversee construction of Wright's Tokyo Imperial Hotel; he stayed in the country and became one of the fathers of modern architecture in Japan. In 1961, Raymond was commissioned to design most buildings on the Nagoya campus. It was one of the largest projects that he would undertake. The campus was orientated on a north–south axis across rolling hills and the eight buildings were arranged to suit the typography and harmonise with the landscape. In-situ concrete is used throughout the scheme and each building has its own concrete form, some with pilotis, others with shells.