The Huazhong University of Science and Technology is a public, coeducational research university located in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. As a national key university, HUST is directly affiliated to the Ministry of Education of China. HUST has been referred to[clarify]as the flagship of China's higher education system after the Chinese Civil War. HUST manages Wuhan National Laboratories for Opto-electronics (WNLO) at Wuchang, which is one of the five national laboratories in China.