Abstract Wind tunnel tests on models of a 1000 ​kV super high-rise tubular steel transmission tower were carried out under two wind fields. In order that the boundary conditions for the tower section models be consistent with those of the actual structure, a new experimental method is proposed. The results show the drag coefficients in a thick turbulent boundary layer are generally less than those in uniform flow, as expected, the drag coefficient of a lattice tower section is related not only to the solidity ratio but also to its geometric shape and oncoming flow turbulence intensity. The effective projected areas (EPA) calculated by wind tunnel tests were compared to the regulations in some applicable codes. The results for the wind loads on the superstructure show that the calculation method should take into account the geometric shape, both in the transverse and longitudinal direction, and be distinguished from the methods for cross-arm and tower body. The test values for the cross-arm are in best agreement with the data from the Chinese code, while the results for the whole tower and tower sections match better with the values from the USA code. The European code generally underestimates the wind loads for all the test models.