BEIJING, October 30, 2009 (AFP) - Harvard University in the United States is once again the world's top institute of higher education for 2009, according to a Chinese ranking that is dominated by American colleges.

Stanford University was second, followed by the University of California at Berkeley, said the annual ranking by the Centre for World-Class Universities and the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai's Jiaotong University.

The Annual Ranking of World Universities was posted on its website at www.arwu.org.

Harvard has been the top-ranked institution since the list was first issued in 2003.

US universities filled 55 of the top 100 spots in the rankings, which are based on a wide range of criteria including numbers of alumni winning top awards such as Nobel prizes.

The highest-ranked non-US university was Cambridge University of Britain, at number four, while University of Tokyo was top-rated in the Asia-Pacific region at 20th spot.

The top-rated institute on the European continent was the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, at 23rd, while Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris was the highest-ranked French school in 40th spot.