Genetic linkage studies were performed in 12 British families with von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL) using RFLPs at three loci (DNF15S2, THRB, RAF1) on the short arm of chromosome 3. Linkage was detected between the VHL disease locus and RAF1 with a maximum lod score of 3.88 at a recombination fraction of 0.05 (confidence interval 0.003-0.18). Multipoint linkage analysis suggested that the most likely location for the VHL disease locus is telomeric to THRB. These results confirm earlier reports localizing the VHL gene to the short arm of chromosome 3, and provide no evidence for genetic heterogeneity.