Flexible plate structures with large deflection and rotation are commonly used structures in engineering. How to analyze and solve the cantilever plate with large deflection and rotation is still an unsolved problem. In this paper, a general nonlinear flexible rectangular cantilever plate considering large deflection and rotation angle is modeled, solved and analyzed. Hamilton's principle is applied to obtain the nonlinear differential dynamic equations and boundary conditions by introducing a coordinate transformation between the Cartesian coordinate system and the deformed local coordinate system. Stress function relating to in-plane force resultants and shear forces is given for the first time for complex coupling equations caused by coordinate transformation. The nonlinear equations and the solving method are validated by experiments. Then, harmonic balance method is adopted to get the nonlinear frequency-response curves, which shows strong hardening spring characteristic of this system. Runge–Kutta methods are used to reveal complex nonlinear behaviors such as 5 super-harmonic resonance, bifurcations and chaos for general nonlinear flexible rectangular cantilever plate.