Objective To investigate the features of brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) and their correlation with cardiovascular risk factors. Methods A total of 3781 patients (including 226 inpatients) taking physical examination in the General Department of Tongji Hospital from January 2013 to March 2015 were recruited in this study. They all underwent baPWV (OMROM arteriosclerosis detector VP-1000, Japan) examination, and then divided into the baPWV <1 400 cm/s group (n=2171) and baPWV ≥1400 cm/s group (n=1610). For the 226 inpatients, they were assigned into 4 groups according to the existences of risk factors for coronary heart diseases (hypertension, pathoglycemia, dyslipidemia, obesity and history of smoking), that is, 0 item group (n=75), 1 item group (n=33), 2 items group (n=49) and 3-5 items group (n=69). Results Age, gender, heart rate, systolic blood pressure (SBP), body mass index (BMI) and mean artery pressure (MAP) were independent influencing factors for baPWV. Though males and females showed similar increasing trend of baPWV level with their aging, the females had significantly lower levels when compared with the males at same age period (P<0.05). The baPWV level was positively correlated with age (r=0.66), SBP (r=0.62), diastolic blood pressure (DBP, r=0.26), MBP (r=0.59), carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT, r=0.37), uric acid (UA, r=0.16), glucose (r=0.17) and glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (r=0.19) (all P<0.05), and negatively correlated with total cholesterol (TC, r=-0.24) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF, r=-0.23) (both P<0.05). With the increase in number of multiple risk factors, the age and baPWV level showed an elevating tendency (P<0.01). baPWV was confirmed to have moderate predictive value for diagnosis of coronary heart diseases, with the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.718 (P<0.05). Conclusion BaPWV is closely associated with the cardiovascular risk factors. The more conventional cardiovascular risk factors, the higher the baPWV level is. baPWV is of moderate predictive value in the diagnosis of coronary heart diseases.