Consider a set of nested infinitely extended elastic cylindrical bodies possessing general cylindrical anisotropy embedded in an unbounded elastic isotropic medium. For general far-field loading, the nature of the elastic fields inside the inhomogeneities is predicted and a number of pertinent attractive properties is noted and proved. Moreover, the associated equivalent inclusion method (EIM) is concisely formulated. The concepts of the homogenization, spectral consistency conditions, and the so-called Eshelby–Fourier tensor are introduced. As a result the tedious and lengthy algebra encountered in the conventional EIM is circumvented and the corresponding large number of unknowns is reduced remarkably. Interestingly, the proposed theory is proved useful in the study of inhomogeneities with coatings made of functionally graded material (FGM). In addition to the relevance of the present work to multiple coated fiber reinforced composites, it is also of great value in the study of multi-shell quantum wire in electronic devices. The robustness and efficacy of the presented theories are demonstrated through consideration of several boundary value problems and various types of materials.