Haute-Vienne is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwest-central France. Named after the Vienne River, it is one of the twelve departments that together constitute Nouvelle-Aquitaine.

There are three arrondissements (administrative districts) in the department; the arrondissement of Limoges, the seat of which is Limoges; the arrondissement of Bellac, the seat of which is Bellac, some 45 km (28 mi) to the northwest of Limoges; and the arrondissement of Rochechouart, with its seat, Rochechouart to the west of Limoges. The prefecture and largest city in the department is Limoges, the other towns in the department each having fewer than twenty thousand inhabitants.

It is bordered by six departments; Creuse lies to the east, Corrèze to the south, Dordogne to the southwest, Charente to the west, Vienne to the northwest and Indre to the north. The department has two main rivers which cross it from east to west; the Vienne, on which the two main cities, Limoges and Saint-Junien, are situated, and the Gartempe, a tributary of the Creuse. To the southeast of the department lies the Massif Central, and the highest point in the department is Puy Lagarde, 795 m (2,608 ft). The source of the Charente is in the department, in the commune of Chéronnac, near Rochechouart.

At the west end of the department is the Rochechouart crater, an impact crater caused by a meteorite that crashed into the earth's surface over 200 million years ago; because of subsequent erosion, little sign of the crater is in evidence today apart from the geologic effects on the surrounding rock.

In 2008 the French State acknowledged the heritage value of the Rochechouart impact creating the "Réserve Naturelle Nationale de l’astroblème de Rochechouart-Chassenon" on 12 sites representative of characteristics geological features of the impact structure.