Boston College is a private research university located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, in the New England region of the United States. Its historic campus, one of the earliest examples of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America, is set on a hilltop six miles (10 km) west of downtown Boston. Although chartered as a university by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1863, Boston College's name reflects its early history as a liberal arts college and preparatory school in Boston's South End. It was the first institution of higher education established in the city, though it later outgrew its urban location and moved to pastoral Chestnut Hill on the city's western edge. Boston College is one of the oldest and largest Jesuit universities in the United States and is home to one of the world's most prominent Catholic theological and philosophical faculties.