To investigate the association between the alleles of human leukocyte antigens (HLA)-DRB1 and essential hypertension (EH) in the Hans living in Yunnan of China. The alleles of HLA-DRB1 were typed by polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific primers (PCR-SSP) technique in samples from 83 patients with essential hypertension and 91 healthy controls. All of the subjects, their grandparents and grand-grandparents are Hans living in Yunnan of China. The frequency of DRB1*1501/2 in the EH patients (0.219) was significantly higher than that in the controls(0.060), chi quare=18.331, P<0.01. Relative risk (RR) was 4.46, and etiologic factor (EF) was 0.34. The frequency of DRB1*0901 significantly decreased in the group of patients with EH in comparison to the controls (0.081 versus 0.192) chi-square=8.704 P<0.05. RR was 0.41 and prevention factor(PF) was 0.19. HLA-DRB1*1501/2 is associated with the susceptibility to essential hypertension in the Yunnan Hans of China. DRB1*0901 may protect one from the disease.