Abstract: One of the major challenges in constructing WSNs is to maintain long network lifetime as well as sufficient sensing area. In this paper, the broad problems of coverage in WSNs are discussed, and coverage protocols dependent on infrastructures (e.g., GPS, directional antennas, etc) or some localization schemes in the existing solutions are identified. To eliminate the reliance on infrastructure, a distributed energy-efficient location-independent coverage protocol (DELIC) is proposed, which aims to preserve coverage based on the local neighborhood information. Comparing its residual energy with its neighborhood, one node can independently make its decision to compete for becoming a working node. The simulation and analysis study demonstrate that the DELIC not only provides the high quality of area coverage and good scalability, but also provides better performance in the energy efficiency. The DELIC outperforms the PEAS, the GAF-like, the sponsor area and OGDC algorithm with respect to the quality of area coverage, total energy-consumption and energy-consumption balance.