The invention discloses an unmanned aerial vehicle automatic patrolling method for a direct current single-circuit tension tower. The method comprises the steps that S1, key patrolling points of the direct current single-circuit tension tower are determined; S2, shooting key points and flight path key points in the patrolling process are selected, and a patrolling flight route is set; S3, manual patrolling is conducted according to the set patrolling flight route, and in the patrolling process, coordinates of the flight path key points, coordinates of the shooting key points and angles of thehead of an unmanned aerial vehicle and a cloud deck at the shooting key points are collected; S4, according to the data collected in the manual patrolling process, an automatic flight task and an automatic shooting task of the unmanned aerial vehicle are generated; S5, the generated patrolling tasks are uploaded to the unmanned aerial vehicle, the unmanned aerial vehicle is controlled to automatically fly completely according to the tasks, when the unmanned aerial vehicle arrives at the shooting key points, the flight direction of the head of the unmanned aerial vehicle and the angle of the cloud deck are automatically adjusted, after in-place adjustment, a camera is trigged to shoot, and the unmanned aerial vehicle returns to the taking off point until all the tasks are completed. The method effectively solves the problems that manual patrolling for the direct current single-circuit tension tower is large in stress, low in safety and not high in efficiency.