This study reports a numerical investigation of the convective flow and heat transfer in a square porous cavity with partially active thermal walls. Five different heating and cooling zones are considered along the vertical walls while the remaining portions of the side walls as well as the top and bottom of the cavity are adiabatic. The Brinkman Forchheimer extended Darcy model is used in the present study and the resulting governing equations are solved by finite volume method with SIMPLE algorithm. The computations are carried out for a wide range of parameters and the results are presented graphically. The results reveal that the location of heating and cooling zones has a significant influence on the flow pattern and the corresponding heat transfer in the enclosure. The location of partial heating has different effect on velocity and heat transfer, and the heat transfer rate approaches to a constant value for very low values of the Darcy number. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.