The gene frequencies at eight loci in some European and Asian human populations have been subjected to spatial autocorrelation analysis, using Geary's c coefficient. Contrary to what is expected for markers affected only by gene flow and genetic drift, the spatial correlograms show distinct modes of gene frequency variation: there are significant clinal patterns (at the GLO and ESD loci), significant non-clinal patterns (AK, ADA, 6-PGD and GPT) and marginally significant patterns (PGP and SOD). Any hypothesis on the evolution of these polymorphisms should account for the observed heterogeneity of their geographical distributions.