This study, carried out in 1995, found evidence of high blood pressure in a rural population in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea. Although the prevalence of obesity as assessed by the body mass index has increased since 1980, blood pressure was not associated with height or weight. Rather, it was associated with fat patterning: increased truncal fatness was associated with greater systolic blood pressure in both males and females. Of the modernization variables examined, the only one associated with blood pressure was type of income, and this for systolic blood pressure among females only. Body mass index was also associated with type of income, this being greatest among the small number of adults with some form of paid employment. Blood pressure showed no association with age, thus conforming to the hypertension pattern seen at early stages of modernization.