Soil is the ultimate foundation material which supports the structure. The proper functioning of the structure, depend on the engineering properties of the underlying soil. Investigating the engineering properties of soils in Tis Abay town is the objective of this study; Since there is no systematic soil investigation works has been carried out prior to this study , so far the town needs investigation of the ground condition. Ten representative test pit points were selected and from each test pit disturbed and undisturbed samples at 1.5 m and 3.0 m were collected and brought to soil laboratory of Bahir Dar Institute of Technology and Amhara Rural Road Construction Agency for conducting different tests. Laboratory tests carried out on disturbed and undisturbed samples revealed that the natural moisture content ranges from 21 - 41 %, specific gravity of the soils ranges from 2.55 - 2.76, Atterberg limits of soils of the study area has liquid limits ranging from 60 - 98 %, plastic limit ranges from 20 - 41 % and plasticity index ranges from 28 - 78 %. The results of grain size analysis showed that soils of Tis Abay town have clay content ranging from 45 - 76 %, silt content from 20 - 60 %, sand from 1 - 5 % and gravel from 0 - 11 %. Free swell test conducted on the samples collected shows range from 43 – 164 %. Soils of the study area are classified according to AASHTO and USCS. AASHTO classification shows that soils of the study area are A-7-5 and A-7-6, which means clay soil with poor quality as a subgrade material. USCS indicates two main types of soils, which are: CH, high plastic clay soils and MH, high plastic silt soils. The results of unconfined compressive strength test of the study area range from 62 - 135 kN/m 2 . Finally, one-dimensional consolidation tests were done and have Pre-consolidation Pressure, P c range from 122 - 238 kN/m 2 , Over-burden Pressure, Po range from 52 - 56 kN/m 2 , compression index, Cc range from 0.258 - 0.427 and recompression index, Cr range from 0.030 - 0.096, Over Consolidation Ratio, OCR range from 2.20 - 4.53. Keywords: Colloidal activity, clay size fraction, plasticity, gradation, consistency, cohesion.