Northwestern Polytechnical University is a National Key University, directed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, located in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. The university emphasizes on the education and research in aeronautical, astronautical and marine engineering. In February 2012, NPU has 13,736 graduate students (3,063 full-time doctorate candidates, 7,087 master candidates, 3,586 professional degree candidates) and 14,395 undergraduate students.