Abstract We investigated the solar cycle variations of the physical characteristics of coronal plasmas in equatorial regions and polar holes in the range from 1.2 to 2.5R [odot] from the Sun's center. We use coronal white light data obtained from total solar eclipses since the 1950s. To eliminate the effects of inhomogeneous data, all observational results for each eclipse were reduced to a common system in which the F-corona model of Koutchmy and Lamy (1985) was used as the photometric standard. Then the K-coronal brightness was determined by subtracting the F corona brightness from the total K + F emission. Values of temperature and density were determined by comparing the observed brightness distributions with distributions calculated assuming a hydrostatic and isothermal corona. We find that in equatorial regions the temperature in the middle corona is constant and equal to 1.4 × 106 K, but n 0, the parameter of the hydrostatic distribution, gradually increases from 2 × 108 cm−3 at solar minimum to 4 × 108 cm−3 at maximum. The specific value of n 0 depends on the level of activity of the underlying solar regions and could be connected with the presence of coronal streamers. In polar regions, n 0 does not depend on the phase of the cycle and is apparently determined by the properties of the associated hoie; those values vary in the range from 0.65 to 1.4 × 108 cm−3. The temperature in polar regions increases from 0.9 × 106 K at minimum to 1.4 × 106 K at maximum. Above 2.5R [odot], a deviation from the hydrostatic density distribution is found, which is most likely connected with the gas-dynamical coronal expansion developing at these heights. The emission measure and mass of the entire corona are evaluated.