In this paper, a general type-2 fuzzy controller is proposed. The proposed general type-2 fuzzy controller is based on α-plane representation, which converts the centroid of general type-2 fuzzy sets to centroids of several interval type-2 fuzzy sets. Also, the mathematical expression of general type-2 fuzzy controller is derived by fuzzy product operate and NT type reduction. By the mathematical expression, the relation between general type-2 fuzzy controller output with parameter of triangular secondary membership function is discussed. Finally, the control performances of proposed general type-2 fuzzy controller are compared with conventional PID controller, tradition type-1 fuzzy controller, and interval type-2 fuzzy controller. Furthermore, to show the effective and practical of the proposed controller, a nonlinear inverted pendulum system is tested. The simulation results show that general type-2 fuzzy controller achieves better control efforts than other compared controllers.