Objectives: This study thus set out to examine the health literacy and self-care behaviors of community-dwelling elderly patients with hypertension and investigate their relations and influential factors, thus providing basic data to develop a nursing intervention program to promote self-care behaviors among hypertension patients. Methods: The subjects include 180 hypertension patients using community health centers, public senior centers, and welfare centers in Jeju. Results: The subjects scored a mean of 49.8 (±12.4) points on health literacy and 55.8 (±6.7) points on self-care behaviors. In the results of hierarchical regression analysis, health literacy independently predicted self-care behaviors (β=.12, p=.050) after controlling for general characteristics, hypertension-related knowledge and self-efficacy. Conclusions: These results suggest that interventions for improving health literacy are important to enhance elder’s ability of self-care behaviors. It is necessary to understand the health literacy of elderly patients with hypertension before providing them with educational intervention and information and to develop appropriate educational materials and intervention programs.