Whether you're aiming high for your own education or that of your children, or if you're just interested in visiting university cities to experience the local culture and architecture, it can be useful to learn which universities are currently placing highest in the world.

There are several systems used to rank universities on national and global scales, each using various criteria. For example, Cambridge University - one of the best known educational institutions in the world, and always placing high in the rankings - is currently rated best in the world for linguistics, and in the top five for all arts and humanities subjects. Meanwhile, equally prestigious Oxford University was placed highest for geography, and joins Cambridge in the overall top five.

These rankings are about more than just prestige, and are often instrumental in the decisions of parents or students themselves when it comes to planning trips overseas to study at the best universities in other countries. The rising cost of tuition fees for British universities in the 2012-13 academic year has also been a cause for concern among Oxford, Cambridge and other universities, which will rely more than ever on the strength of their departments to attract students over the international competition.

American universities provide tough competition to Oxbridge institutions each time the global rankings are published, not only from reliable contenders like Harvard University, but also rising stars like the California Institute of Technology, which placed higher than Harvard for the first time in the Times Higher Education (THE) study of 2011-12.

Overall, universities in the United States boast the highest number of performance accolades, closely followed by the United Kingdom. After these two educational powerhouse nations come the Netherlands and Germany, each of which has 12 universities placing in the top 200 worldwide, and Canada with nine in the top 200. Many Asian universities are fast catching up to their European and North American counterparts, with the University of Tokyo in Japan placing at number 30 in the global list for 2011-12, the University of Hong Kong at 34 and the University of Singapore at 40.

These universities are more than just places to study, of course, and in the case of Oxford and Cambridge especially, the universities dominate many aspects of life in these historical cities themselves. Staying at Oxford hotels will allow you to explore the charming halls and city streets of Oxford and the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside.

Sean Burke writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.