"The total number of students present at the programming class on October 12 was 1,668 people," said Paulina Sapinska, a judge from the Guinness World Records Organization.

The school hopes the programming class will draw more international attention to Portugal as a growing information technology hub, according to Reuters .

Mr. Rogerio Colaco, Director of IST at the University of Lisbon, said that the level of understanding about computers today is the same as the ability to read and write 100 years ago.

“This means that everyone has to know a little bit about computer science, about programming to be able to live in today's modern world,” said Mr. Colaco.

The previous Guinness World Record was 724 participants in Dallas, USA on October 31, 2016. The event took place on Halloween and many people dressed up in unique costumes to attend.

The University of Lisbon is a leading public university in the Portuguese capital Lisbon and one of the largest universities in Europe. It is ranked 260th in the QS World University Rankings 2025.

According to information on the official website, the University of Lisbon has 18 faculties, with a total of about 50,000 students and welcomes about 1,000 international students every year, along with 4,000 lecturers and 2,500 part-time staff.