Huaihua University is an applied local undergraduate university, located in Huaihua City, Hunan Province, known as "the pearl city in Southwest China" and recognized as a city of "the common thoroughfare connecting five provinces of the country", and thus well nourished by the charm of the Xuefengshan Mountains nearby and the beauty of the Wushui River running through. You can take the high-speed railway bound for Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Kunming every day; you can drive about two hours to Zhangjiajie—a famous scenic spot at home and abroad, one and a half hours to the old town of Fenghuang, and 45minutes to Zhijiang—a world renowned historic and cultural town; you can also fly from Zhijiang airport to 15 major cities in China. 5.1 million people of different ethnic groups live in harmony here. 50 ethnic minorities such as Dong, Miao, Yao and Tujia account for 40% of the total population. Local ethnic folk culture and art are bright and colorful, winning Huaihua the title of "China National Ecological Museum". With emerald mountains, clear water and blue sky, the forest coverage rate of Huaihua City has reached 71%. It is one of the nine ecologically healthy areas in China and is known as "a city that can breathe" 

Huaihua University, founded in 1958, is an application-oriented comprehensive undergraduate institute. It currently has 23 schools and offers 51 undergraduate programs, covering 10 disciplines including engineering, management, education, literature, science, art, economics, law, agriculture, and history with more than 20,986 full-time undergraduate students. Huaihua University is  qualified to recruit and educate overseas international students, and is  one of the institutes of Hunan Province for training the scholarship students from the along "The Belt and Road" 。

The university has two campuses, namely the East Campus and the West Campus, which cover an area of 1158 mu (about 77 hectares) in total. Apart from various teaching facilities, there are mountains and lakes on campus. The university has a staff of 1270, of which 107 have the academic title of Professor and 224 have doctoral degrees. The library of Huaihua University has 1,532,700 print books and periodicals and 499,000 e-books.

The university has I national characteristic specialty, I national comprehensive reform pilot specialty, I provincial key specialty, 7 provincial characteristic specialties, 4 provincial comprehesive reform pilot specialties, 3 national first- class specialty construction sites, 26 provincial pilot first- class undergraduate specialty construction sites, 3 provincial teaching and research teams, and 56 provincial first- class courses.

Huaihua University has signed cooperation agreements with 33 universities in 16 countries and regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea. In September 2019, the International School of Huaihua University was established to work together with the university' s International Office and the Centre for Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in aspects such as the enrollment and education of international students, and overseas exchange and cooperation affairs of Huaihua University.

Since 2016, Huaihua University has successively admitted more than 100 international students from 13 countries such as the United States, Spain, Russia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Mongolia, Laos, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Indonesia.