Hafnium disulfide (HfS2) has attracted significant interest because of the predicted excellent electronic properties superior to group VIB transition metal dichalcogenides. On the other hand, atomically thin hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is an ideal dielectric substrate for optoelectronic applications of other 2D materials. Here, for the first time, we report the direct growth of high-quality atomic layered HfS2 on few-layer h-BN transferred on SiO2/Si substrates by chemical vapor deposition. It was found that the HfS2 layers are selectively grown on h-BN rather than on SiO2/Si. Density functional theory calculations are performed to help understand the mechanism of selective growth of HfS2. Furthermore, the photodetectors based on the HfS2/h-BN heterostructures exhibit excellent visible-light sensing performance, such as a high on/off ratio of more than 105, an ultrafast response rate of about 200 μs, a high responsivity of 26.5 mA W–1, and a competitive detectivity exceeding 3 × 1011 Jones, superior to the vast majority of the reported 2D materials based photodetectors. The remarkable performance of the HfS2/h-BN photodetector is attributed to the unique features of 2D h-BN substrate.