Abstract: With the development of steel structures, the application of high strength hot-rolled steel equal angles in steel structures is increasing, especially in transmission towers and long span trusses. But high strength steel is quite different from ordinary strength steel in the aspect of material properties, which causes that the local buckling behavior of steel equal angle members under axial compression varies with the steel strength. The research in this field is deficient currently. A finite element model was developed in this paper by using the finite element software named ANSYS, with the residual stresses and the initial geometric imperfections of the specimens were taken into consideration to analyze the local buckling behavior of steel equal angle members under axial compression, and study its behaviors with the variety of the steel strength and the width-thickness ratio. By comparing the finite element analysis (FEA) results with those of the design methods in the American and European steel structures design codes (AISC 360-05 and Eurocode 3), the corresponding design suggestion was proposed, which provided a reference for the related design.