The Main Campus is located north of Hawassa town along the highway connecting Addis Ababa, the capital city, with the southernmost town of Moyale on the Kenyan border.

It occupies a vast acre of land between the Industrial Park Development Corporation (IPDC) and the main building hosting the Council of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples from South to North respectively.

Main campus is abode of four Colleges and one Institute. These are: College of Education, College of Law and Governance, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, College of Social Sciences and Humanities and Institute of Policy and Development Research.

Besides, main campus serves as the seat of HU’s management body including the President, Vice Presidents, the Registrar, Academic Programme Directorate, School of Graduate Studies, Office of External Relations and Communications, Public Relations and Communications Directorate, International Relations and Alumni Affairs Directorate and many more.