The University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world and feeder for the British elite, has topped a global education ranking for the first time.

Oxford knocked the leader for the last five years, California Institute of Technology, into second place in the Times Higher Education's global league table, which also saw Chinese universities climb rapidly.

The rankings showed institutions in Asia had made progress with two new Asian universities — the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology — now in the 100 and four joining the top 200.

Peking University rose to 29th place from 42, and Tsinghua ranked 35, up from 47th last year.

Asian universities were "powering up the rankings," said Phil Baty, editor of the rankings, with the Chinese government pumping billions of dollars into its universities at the same time that austerity in the West was squeezing budgets.

Oxford, which educated four of the last six British prime ministers, ousted its US rival after its research funding rose 10 percent and overall funding rose to $1.83 billion, while the impact of its research increased, he said.

While Oxford, the University of Cambridge and London's Imperial College make the top 10 along with ETH Zurich, the list is dominated by US universities. Stanford University is ranked third, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fifth, Harvard sixth, Princeton seventh and the University of California, Berkeley and University of Chicago at tenth equal.