Abstract: Recognizing importance and difficulty of the fatigue design of high and flexible wind turbine steel tubular tower structures, this study discusses the corresponding wind-induced fatigue analysis theory and approach as well as their application to a typical wind turbine structure. An integrated finite element model is established including blades, nacelle, tubular tower and foundation. The joint distribution function of wind speed and wind direction at the installation location of the wind turbine structure is then derived based on the observation data of the meteorological station. The wind-induced response time-domain analyses of the wind turbine structure are carried out. Time-domain and time-frequency domain analysis theories are systematically established considering the effect of blade rotating, wind direction and the impact of low stress amplitude cycle on the fatigue damage of tubular tower steel structures. The results show that the rotating effect of blades has significant influent on the root mean square (RMS) of steel tubular tower structures, therefore the wind-induced fatigue life analysis should consider the rotating effect of blades. Wind direction has great influence on wind-induced fatigue cumulative damage, which is larger in the interval with a higher probability of wind direction. The fatigue life of the steel tubular tower structures calculated through time-frequency domain analysis theory is relatively small, and the calculation cost is smaller compared with that based on time domain analysis theory. The equivalent stress method modified by the rain flow method, TB-2 formula and Dirlik formula are proposed to make fatigue design for wind turbine tubular tower structures in this study. Corresponding to different design requirements in practical engineering, different wind-induced fatigue analysis methods are recommended.