Due to a lack of varied rice genotypes, Ethiopia's rice (Oryza sativa L.) productivity is low compared to the world average. As a result, it's critical to characterize and identify the variability of introduced rice genotypes in order to generate information for the future breeding projects. Hence, this study was conducted with 70 upland rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes at Pawe Agricultural Research Center in 2020/21 cropping season. The objectives of the study were evaluating the genetic variability, heritability, and associations among morphological, yield related and quality traits. The experimental desing was Alpha lattice with two replication and seven block. Atotal of from the collected 21 traits analysis of variance was done for 15 traits and there was highly significant (P<.001) difference among genotypes. In addition, Shannon diversity index for three physical quality and three qualitative traits detected high diversity. Genotypic coefficient of variance was in a range from 6.1% to 44.51% while phenotypic coefficient of variance was between 6.5% and 45.81%. Broad sense heritability was high for all traits except days to emergence. Genetic advance as percent of the mean ranged from 11.02% to 89.07%. High heritability with high genetic advance as percent of the mean were recorded for stand count, plant height, productive tillers, filled grain/panicle, thousand grain weight, grain yield, biomass yield and harvest index. Traits with positive correlation and direct effect on yield such as, biomass, days to maturity, panicle length, productive tillers, and filled grains per panicle could be selected indirectly for yield improvment. Seventy genotypes grouped in to seven clusters with the highest distance between cluster III and VII (D 2=3121.8) and lowest between cluster II and IV (D 2=46.6). The first four principal components with eigen values greater than 1 contributed 70.2 % of the total variation. In general, the result of this study showed the existence of high genetic variability among the tested rice genotypes indicating high chance of getting promising parental materials for further improvment programs. Genotypes in Cluster III and VII could be used for crossing to develop genotypes with high grain yield, protein content, early maturity, and medium plant height.