When one considers the property of the axisymmetry, an analysis of an axisymmetric shell subjected to unaxisymmetric loading can be employed to save time and computer memory space. If one considers the Fourier series of the circumference direction of loads and displacements, an axisymmetric tank subjected to a nonaxisymmetric load can be treated as a frame element. Using the Fourier series, the authors derived the stiffness matrix of the cylindrical shell subjected to unaxisymmetric loading by the usual finite element method, and converted the stiffness matrix of a frame element into a transfer matrix by rearranging the stiffness matrix to apply the transfer matrix method. Here the most significant purpose of this paper is to achieve the fewest number of simultaneous equations for analysing an axisymmetric shell subjected to a nonaxisymmetric load. The results of the proposed method of the analysis of the cylindrical shell subjected to a wind load and a water load show no differences when compared to the other methods.