We have investigated the growth of Co on Ag/Cu one‐dimensional, periodic striped nanostructures. The latter are obtained by evaporation of submonolayer amounts of Ag on top of vicinal Cu(111) surfaces, which leads to periodic faceting with Ag‐covered stripes and stepped Cu bands. Ag stripe width and superlattice periodicity is tuned with substrate miscut and Ag coverage. Nucleation and growth of Co proceeds differently on Ag or Cu stripes, although both in a similar way as on flat Ag‐covered and bare Cu(111), respectively. We describe how, by tuning the Ag/Cu mask one could produce arrays of linear Co structures, which eventually could display uniaxial magnetic properties. © 2003 American Institute of Physics