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Nowadays, malaria control is planned according to the epidemiological context. Various aspects of malaria have been described in sub-Saharan Africa. We report here entomological data from the coastal area of Benin, West Africa, which has many lakes and lagoons. We carried out a longitudinal study in which we investigated the dynamics of populations of malaria vectors in various zones, the frequency of inoculation in these zones, the infestation rate of the Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes collected, the effect of urbanization on malaria transmission, the effects of inundation and of salinity at mosquito breeding sites. A total of 3, 342 identifications were made on a chromosomal basis. Two species of the Anopheles gambiae complex were detected in the coastal and lagoon areas of Benin: An. melas and An. gambiae ss. The density of the populations of these species was highly dependent on the level of urbanization. In traditional villages on the lagoons (such as Agbalilamè, Djegbadji and Kétonou), the density of An. melas (86. 2%) was much higher than that in more urbanized areas (such as Ladji and Abomey-Calavi) (4.9%). We checked for chromosome polymorphism. We detected a 2Rn1 inversion in An. melas, similar to the 2Rn inversion found in mosquitoes in Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. The frequency of the n1 inversion and the density of An. melas populations were correlated and both seemed to depend on a single factor, salinity. The epidemiological situation with respect to malaria was very heterogeneous in the lagoon area of Benin. In the city of Cotonou, transmission was seasonal, sporozoite indices and the frequency of inoculation were high, in contrast to what would normally be expected in an urban area. In communities built on the beach, the level of transmission was markedly lower: about 5 infected bites per person per year versus 29 infected bites per person in the center of the city. In the traditional fishing villages, a paradoxical situation was observed in which the mosquitoes were very aggressive towards humans (4,502 bites per person per year) but the frequency of transmission was low (d = 0. 27%, CS+ = 0.57%). This was largely due to the high density in this area of An. melas, a poor malaria vector. If traditional villages become more urbanized, more freshwater breeding sites are created and the An. gambiae population increases, leading to an increase in malaria transmission. This is the reason for the higher level of malaria transmission at Ladji and Abomey-Calavi (h = 47 infected bites per person per year) than at Agbailamè, Djegbadji and Kétonou (h = 12.1 infected bites per person per year)