Due to the accurate identification of wave front can improve accuracy of travelling wave fault location in distribution network, the paper used improved Hilbert-Huang transform to discern the travelling wave front, firstly, used the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise to decompose fault signal, then got instantaneous amplitude of high-frequency intrinsic mode function components by using Hilbert transform. The wave front could be recognized by the breakpoint of instantaneous amplitude. After using the above methods to discern the travelling wave front,for uniform line,used type D measuring distance technology to realize distance measurement, for hybrid line composed of overhead line and cable, fault location could be realized by utilized the two terminal method based on the difference of travelling wave propagation time at each connection point. Through simulations, the proposed method can be verified to locate the fault accurately and reliably in the case of different fault resistance, different fault location, different fault time and etc.