The university was established in Nanning, Guangxi on 21 November 1934 as the Guangxi Provincial Medical School (广西省立医学院), and the campus was moved to Guilin in November 1949, shortly after the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
Established in 1934, the university is one of the first universities in China to accept international students into its English language medical education program, which is limited only to clinical medicine (临床医学).