Zinc crystals were bent either by wrapping them around a mandrel or by the application of a concentrated load in a direction perpendicular to the basal plane. The structure of the bent crystals was studied by means of suitable x‐ray diffraction techniques, namely the Lambot technique and the Schulz technique. It was found that, after bending around a mandrel of sufficiently small radius, the zinc crystals were subdivided into subgrains, with an average disorientation between neighboring subgrains of approximately 3 minutes of arc. In the dimples formed by a concentrated load the radius of bending is quite large and there is hardly any observable substructure. However, the substructure does develop upon annealing by the polygonization mechanism. The diameter of the dimples formed by a concentrated load increases linearly with the logarithm of the time of load application, for a constant load, and it increases linearly with the load if the time of load application is constant.