This paper discusses the properties of the rotational invariance and hyperbolicity in time of the governing equations of the ideal special relativistic hydrodynamics and proves for the first time that the ideal relativistic hydrodynamical equations satisfy the homogeneity property, which is the footstone of the Steger–Warming flux vector splitting method [J. L. Steger and R. F. Warming, J. Comput. Phys., 40(1981), 263–293]. On the basis of this remarkable property, the Steger–Warming flux vector splitting (SW‐FVS) is given. Two high‐resolution SW‐FVS schemes are also given on the basis of the initial reconstructions of the solutions and the fluxes, respectively. Several numerical experiments are conducted to validate the performance of the SW‐FVS method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.