Key Asian institutions continued to move up the international rakings quickly, according to the 2014 World Reputation Rankings published by Times Higher Education magazine on Wednesday.

In this year's rankings, the elite group of six U.S. and British "super-brands" is still holding the leading position: Harvard University in first place, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in second, Stanford University third, followed by Cambridge, Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley.

However, the traditional elites in the U.S. and Europe are being challenged by Asia's strong peers. Japan remains Asia's leading nation in the prestige stakes, with five top 100 universities. Although its flagship, Tokyo University exits the top 10, its peers do better: Kyoto University and Osaka University both entered the top 50.

China's Tsinghua University slips one place to 36th, while Peking University climbs four places to 41st. China's special administrative region of Hong Kong also has two representatives in top 100. South Korea and Singapore continue their steady year-on-year progress as well.

Universities always attach great importance to their reputation, which allow them to better attract staff, students, business investment and research partners.

The World Reputation Rankings are based on a global invitation-only opinion poll by Thomson Reuters, Times Higher Education's data supplier.