Significance Continuous, cuffless, and noninvasive blood pressure monitoring by measuring the pulse wave velocity is generally considered to be a promising technique for noninvasive measurements. Previously reported relations between blood pressure and pulse wave velocity relation involve unrealistic assumptions that do not hold for human arteries, and also rely on empirical expressions without any theoretical basis. Here, an analytical model without such assumptions or empirical expressions is established to yield a relation between blood pressure and pulse wave velocity that has general utility for future work in continuous, cuffless, and noninvasive blood pressure monitoring.