We analyze the effect of oxygen content and cation substitution on the anisotropy of high‐Tcsuperconductors. On the basis of the Josephson coupled block model, the relationship between the anisotropy parameter &ggr; and the oxygen doped (&dgr;, equivalent to doped oxygen) or ion substituted (x, substituted ion) in Y‐based systems is found to be &ggr;=&ggr;0/(1−x/xc), which gives a good explanation of the anisotropy variations of the superconducting samples YBa2Cu3O7−&dgr;, Y1−xPrxBa2Cu3O7−&dgr;, YBa2Cu3−xFexO7−&dgr;, and YBa2Cu3−xZnxO7−&dgr;; herexcis a fitting parameter. With the same phenomenological method, thex(or &dgr;) dependence of &ggr; of La2−xSrxCuO4−ycan be described as &ggr;=&ggr;0/x. It can be seen that the coupling between superconducting layers is closely related to the doping states. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.