The invention discloses a hand gesture recognition method based on multi-feature fusion and fingertip detecting. The method comprises a training process and a recognition process. In the training process, for a complex hand gesture, reasonable hand gesture features are selected, a multi-feature fusion feature extracting algorithm is used, the hand gesture is subjected to support vector machine training, and a training model is formed. In the recognition process, for an input video image sequence, hand gesture detecting is carried out first, then multi-feature extracting and fusion are carried out, and multiple features are input into the support vector machine to obtain a recognition results. Meanwhile, the hand gesture is subjected to fingertip detecting based on defects, through a defect screener, the positions of fingertips of fingers are located, then two-time recognition and detecting results are subjected to synthesized, and the final hand gesture recognition results are obtained. The problem that in a complex scene, the hand gesture recognition rate is not high can be effectively solved, the requirement of real-time performance is met, and the method can be well used in human-machine interaction.