The nonlinear dust acoustic waves in dusty plasmas with the combined effects of bounded cylindrical geometry and the transverse perturbation are studied. Using the perturbation method, a cylindrical Kadomtsev–Petviashvili (CKP) equation that describes the dust acoustic waves is deduced for the first time. A particular solution of this CKP equation is also obtained. It is shown that the dust acoustic solitary waves can exist in the CKP equation.