A blood pressure measuring apparatus oppresses blood vessels of a human body by an inflating unit through a cuff. When the blood vessels are oppressed through the cuff, a pulse wave superposed on a cuff pressure signal through a cuff pressure detector is detected by a pulse wave detector. The waveform of the detected pulse wave changes similarly to changes of pressure in the oppressed blood vessels in one heartbeat period. The information of the detected pulse wave waveform and the cuff pressure at this time are stored in a memory. A blood pressure calculator determines the scale of pulse wave waveform on the basis of the information stored in the memory, and matches the determined scale of pulse wave waveform with the scale of waveform showing pressure changes in the blood vessels, so that a plurality of timings of coincidence of cuff pressure and blood pressure are detected, and the systolic pressure and diastolic pressure are calculated by using these detected information and stored information of pulse wave waveforms. It is therefore possible to measure blood pressures in a short time.