SUMMARYA fault location method based on genetic algorithm for high‐voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line is proposed in this article. This method adopts the Bergeron model of transmission line, in which the voltage at any point of the line can be calculated by the voltage and current data sampled at both terminals of the line, and the fault position can be identified using the distributed characteristics of voltage along the line. Unlike the traditional fault location methods based on the Bergeron model, which depend on accurate line parameters and highly synchronized samples at two terminals of the line, the proposed method takes line parameters and asynchronous time at two terminals of the line together with the unknown fault location as the variables in model building to obtain the fault location. As an optimization problem, the model is solved by genetic algorithm. The significant advantage of the method is that it can reduce the influence of line parameter deviation and asynchronous samples at two terminals to the fault location result. The purpose of proposing this method is to avoid the situation without location result for the traveling wave fault location method when a grounding fault occurred with high resistance and to improve the accuracy of fault location result under harsh environment condition. The simulation model of a typical 500 kV HVDC transmission line in the Chinese power system was built by PSCAD, and MATLAB was used to verify the algorithm. Actual fault recording data obtained from the south grid of China were used to test the effectiveness of this method. Simulation results show that the proposed method is valid and is capable of eliminating the influence of line parameters deviation and asynchronous data on the accuracy of fault location results for the HVDC transmission line. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.