The main source of the school can be traced back to Sanjiang Normal School founded in 1902, which is one of the birthplaces of higher normal education in China. After that, it went through Liangjiang Excellent Normal School, Nanjing Higher Normal School, National Southeast University, National Fourth Sun Yat-sen University, Jiangsu University, National Central University and National Nanjing University.
As of March 2020, the school has three campuses, namely Xianlin, Suiyuan and Zijin, covering an area of 2 179633 square meters with a total construction area of 932076. 19 m2. There are 28 secondary colleges, 6 national key disciplines and 3 national key cultivation disciplines. Six disciplines were rated as Class A in the fourth round of national discipline evaluation, and eight disciplines ranked among the top 1% of ESI in the world.