George Mason University, GMU, or Mason is a Public University in the United States. It is located in the suburbs of Washington, DC, in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It currently operates campuses in Arlington, Fairfax County, Prince William County, and the Ras Al Khaimah Campus in the United Arab Emirates.

Additionally, it operates a temporary site in Loudoun County, with plans to expand it to a full campus by 2009. The university was founded in 1957 and named after American revolutionary, patriot, and founding father George Mason.George Mason University can trace its roots back to the 1950s when the legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia passed a resolution, in January of 1956, to establish a branch college of the University of Virginia in Northern Virginia. In September of 1957 the new college opened its doors to seventeen students, all of whom enrolled as freshmen in a renovated elementary school building at Bailey's Crossroads. John Norville Gibson Finley served as Director of the new branch, which was known as University College.