The Department of Urban Planning was officially founded in April 2008. It provides bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs to the majors of urban planning and landscape designing. Having a long history, the specialty of urban planning derived from the department of architecture in Guangdong Provincial Xiangqin University, and was first established in the department of architecture in the South China Institute of Technology during the period of College and department adjusting in all of universities and colleges in China in 1952. It is one of the earliest and the most influential specialties of urban planning in China. It is also one of the first universities enrolling graduate students of urban planning and design in 1986, and one of the first universities enrolling five-year undergraduate students of urban planning in 1998.

Urban planning has already been stated as Provincial namable specialty . Both its undergraduate program and graduate program have passed the national evaluation of college education, and have been awarded as “excellence” in 2008 and 2002, as is the only one in South China to get this special honor. The specialty of landscape was officially founded in 2004, and began to enroll five-year undergraduate students and three-year graduate students ever since.

The goal of the specialty of urban planning is to succeed its education experience and characteristics of over seventy years; to establish and improve the educational system of urban planning with the subtropical characteristics, based on the regional, cultural and environmental characteristics of South China; to establish the specialty of urban planning by the international standards gradually; to nourish future planners, designers, researchers and administrators of urban planning with pioneering spirit and practical innovation.