ABSTRACT. – Fourteen sites of the Western Mediterranean Sea were sampled by underwater visual census of SCUBA divers to assess large-scale patterns of coralligenous fish assemblages. The frequency of occurrence of each species (percentage of samples where each species was present) was calculated. Sixty-one different taxa were identified, mostly belonging to Serranidae, Sparidae, Labridae and Gobiidae. The number of species per site had a mean value of 38.6 ± 2.7 (mean ± SD). Geographical patterns in species composition showed three main groups: the first consisting of Sicily sites, the second of Sardinia and South-East Corsica sites and the third of all the others.