Abstract This paper present computational study on molybdenum disulfide (MoS2 ) nanotubes with square cross sections in order to elucidate the growth mechanism and properties of experimentally synthesized nanotubes. The results show that these square nanotubes have strain energies lower than the traditional cylinder ones in the small-diameter region. They also show a much smaller band gap and higher surface energies compared with the cylindrical ones. Zigzag and armchair chirality shows qualitatively different electronic structures about the localization of the edge states.