The influence of finite substrate size on misfit dislocation densities in strained systems is examined through the growth of InxGa1−xAs on nonplanar patterned (100) GaAs substrates consisting of parallel mesas of widths between 6500 Å and 1.3 μm and of macroscopic length. Cross‐sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM) studies on In0.11Ga0.89As films reveal that while the mean misfit dislocation spacing for the growth in the nonpatterned region was ∼1500 Å, for the growth on the mesas no misfit dislocations running parallel to the mesa length were observed. This is likely due to strain relief at the mesa edges, possibly brought about by the ability to transfer strain energy from cluster coalescence boundaries to the mesa edges and/or reduced cluster coalescence boundaries when the mesa size becomes comparable to or less than the effective migration length.