Yuelu Academy was founded in the year 976, during the Song dynasty, as a Confucian shuyuan.

In 1903, during the final years of the Qing dynasty, the Hunan Institute of Higher Education was established.

[5] From April 1938 to May 1941, the National Hunan University suffered serious losses and, made it difficult to run the school.

[6][7] In 1959, Hunan University was officially restored after the national readjustment of higher education institutions.

[13] In 2011, HNU participated in the Excellence League, an alliance of 10 Chinese universities with a strong background in engineering.

[21] Hunan University has started to recruit international students since 1990s and is one of the Project 985 universities in China to launch an international student program taught entirely in English.