At 83,460 square metres (898,400 sq ft), it is Europe's largest railway station measured by floor area.

It has 19 overground platforms housed in six iron train sheds, a multi-level concourse with towering stone arches, and a 298-metre-long (978 ft) facade at the northeastern section of the Inner City Ring Road.

Initially trains departed from separate termini, such as Bayerischer Bahnhof, located southeast of the Leipzig city centre.

Therefore, two state railways rivalled to meet the demands of a steadily growing transport volume in the Leipzig area.

The winning design by the architects William Lossow (1852–1914) and Max Hans Kühne (1874–1942) featured two identical domed entrance halls facing the street, one for each company.

When construction works finished on 4 December 1915, Leipzig Hauptbahnhof had become one of the world's largest railway stations with 26 platforms.

The separate administration of the Saxon and Prussian parts of the station continued even after World War I and the establishment of the nationwide Deutsche Reichsbahn railway organisation in 1920.