A survey was undertaken between November 1994 and January 1995 to assess the knowledge and practice with respect to malaria of 1946 randomly selected households in endemic urban and rural areas of Hormozgan, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchistan Provinces, southeast Iran. Knowledge of inhabitants was relatively poor in the study area despite activities to control the disease there for more than 35 years. Mean scores of the knowledge of the residents of the villages having access to primary health care (PHC) services was significantly lower than that under the services of the mobile teams which may reflect the insignificant attention which has been devoted to health education by PHC workers with respect to malaria and malaria control. An educational campaign directed at increasing the knowledge should result in greater acceptance of residents of personal protection methods and vector control and drug treatment programmes.