West Campus is a residential section of Cornell University main campus in Ithaca, New York. It is bounded roughly by Fall Creek gorge to the north, West Avenue and Libe Slope to the east, Cascadilla gorge and the Ithaca City Cemetery to the south, and University Avenue and Lake Street to the west. It now primarily houses transfer students, second year students, and upperclassmen.

The university's Division of Student and Campus Life (SCL) uses the term differently, to refer to those buildings which are part of the West Campus House System, which organizes residents into five residential colleges. SCL labels its traditional dormitories and other residences on West Campus and in Collegetown collectively as "South Campus."

Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White, was broadly opposed to student dormitories, believing that boarding houses and fraternities provided a superior living environment. Owing to the isolation of the campus, the university acquired Cascadilla Hall and housed some students and faculty there, and later in the "Stone Row" buildings on central campus, White, McGraw, and Morrill Halls. No dedicated residence halls would be erected for almost half a century.

After Prudence Risley Hall was designed as a women's residence in 1911, efforts began on a men's residential complex on West Campus. In 1910, Warren Hanning's campus plan had established the site for new buildings in the English Collegiate Gothic style. Trustees A.D. White, George Charles Boldt, and Robert H. Treman led a subscription campaign. The site was designed by architect Ralph Adams Cram, who had recently completed the Graduate School at Princeton University. Architectural firm Day & Klauder designed multiple buildings, each housing between 16 and 30 men. The first, Founders Hall, was completed in 1913.

In the 1920s, West Campus was envisioned as fully Gothic in style, connected to Frederick Law Olmsted's plan of a grand terrace overlooking Cayuga Lake. Rhode Island architect F. Ellis Jackson, of the class of 1900, expanded this plan to include a memorial to the 264 Cornellians who had died in World War I. The war memorial group, completed in 1928, features the towers of Lyon Hall to the north and McFaddin Hall to the south, and a memorial cloister connecting the two. The ninth and last of the "Gothic" structures, Mennen Hall, was built in 1931.

The grand terrace was never realized amidst the Great Depression and World War II, and the plans scrapped owing to the rapid postwar expansion in enrollment. Six modern brick-faced dormitories were built in 1953 to accommodate the postwar expansion. Numbered 1 to 6, these were designated the "University Halls" to distinguish them from the Gothic "Baker Dormitories." In the 1960s–1980s, five of the individual University Halls were named in honor of various alumni classes that had achieved large donation records. The original Noyes Community Center, which offered dining, recreation and other services to residents of the campus, was constructed in 1966.

The university also built or acquired a number of small residences in the area; it purchased the Central Avenue fraternity houses of Psi Upsilon and Sigma Phi fraternities to build Myron Taylor Hall (dedicated 1932), to be the home of the Cornell Law School, and built new houses for them on West Campus. These acquisitions accelerated after the war, with the university removing faculty housing and acquiring fraternities and other small living units around campus. Some, like 110 Edgemoor Lane, were demolished for parking or new construction, while others have been maintained as offices or residences.

Before funding was obtained for new residences on either North or West Campus, the university added housing in the Collegetown neighborhood south of campus. Sheldon Court and Sage Infirmary (now Schuyler House) were converted into dormitories in 1981. Cascadilla Hall, the oldest building on campus, was renovated 1983–84, including the addition of a fifth floor, which increased its capacity from 144 beds to approximately 390.