Zinc Oxide (ZnO) is an intrinsic n-type metal oxide-based semiconductor with a wide bandgap and has attracted much attention of researchers due to its unique properties and applications in optoelectronic devices, ceramics, catalysis, pigments and many others. Herein, ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) have been successfully synthesised by a simple and cost-effective chemical co-precipitation method. The product is characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy (UV-Vis), photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The XRD pattern confirms the formation of the wurtzite phase ZnO nanoparticles. The structural information and composition were further confirmed by FTIR where the stretching vibration bands appeared at 493 cm^–1, 562 cm^–1 and 831 cm^–1 are due to the Zn-O bond. The absorption edge is observed at 359 -nm which is due to its quantum confinement effect whereas the PL emission is observed in the range of 370 nm-600 nm. M-H loop shows the presence of room temperature ferromagnetism in ZnO nanoparticles possibly due to the presence of oxygen vacancies.