Abstract: In low earth orbit(LEO) satellite networks, the length of inter-satellite links in high latitude regions are relatively shorter due to the spherical surface of the earth, this results in unbalanced traffic load distribution. In this paper, two load balancing strategies for distributed routing algorithms are proposed based on the horizontal transmitting priority and horizontal transmitting probability. The load balancing strategy based on the horizontal transmitting priority can be used as a real time strategy for its ability of flexibly adjusting the traffic load in a specific district. The horizontal transmitting probability based load balancing strategy is able to adjust the load distribution of the whole network, thus it can be used as a global optimization method. The simulation results prove that both of the strategies are capable of balancing the traffic load in LEO satellite networks.