Abstract The allelic distribution of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I genes (HLA‐A, HLA‐B, and HLA‐Cw) of the population from the State of Pernambuco in Northeastern Brazil was studied in a sample of 101 healthy unrelated individuals. Low to medium resolution HLA class I typing was performed using polymerase chain reaction‐amplified DNA hybridized to sequence specific primers (PCR‐SSPs). Twenty allele groups were detected for HLA‐A, 28 for HLA‐B, and 14 for HLA‐Cw. The most frequent alleles were HLA‐A*02(0.2871), HLA‐B*15(0.1238), and HLA‐Cw*04(0.2277), and the most frequent genotypes were A*02/A*02(0.0990), B*15/B*15(0.0594), and Cw*04/Cw*04 and Cw*07/Cw*07, both with a frequency of 0.0792. The observed heterozygosity for the studied loci was 79.21% for HLA‐A, 87.13% for HLA‐B, and 77.23% for HLA‐Cw. The most frequent haplotype was A*02‐Cw*04‐B*35(0.0485), which is also present in Western European, Amerindian, and Brazilian Mulatto populations, but absent in African populations. Taken together, these data corroborate the historic anthropological evidences of the origin of the Northeastern Brazilian population from Pernambuco.