Abstract: Love’s first approximation theory is used to analyze the natural frequencies of rotating functionally graded cylindrical shells. To verify the validity of the present method, the natural frequencies of the simply supported non-rotating isotropic cylindrical shell and the functionally graded cylindrical shell are compared with available published results. Good agreement is obtained. The effects of the power law index, the wave numbers along the x- and θ-directions, and the thickness-to-radius ratio on the natural frequencies of the simply supported rotating functionally graded cylindrical shell are investigated by several numerical examples. It is found that the fundamental frequencies of the backward waves increase with the increasing rotating speed, the fundamental frequencies of the forward waves decrease with the increasing rotating speed, and the forward and backward waves frequencies increase with the increasing thickness-to-radius ratio.