Ostwald ripening and step-terraced morphology formation on the GaAs(0 0 1) surface during annealing in equilibrium conditions are investigated experimentally and by Monte Carlo simulation. Fourier and autocorrelation analyses are used to reveal surface relief anisotropy and provide information about islands and pits shape and their size distribution. Two origins of surface anisotropy are revealed. At the initial stage of surface smoothing, crystallographic anisotropy is observed, which is caused presumably by the anisotropy of surface diffusion at GaAs(0 01). A difference of diffusion activation energies along [1 1 0] and [1 1 0] axes of the (0 0 1) face is estimated as Delta E-d approximate to 0.1 eV from the comparison of experimental results and simulation. At later stages of surface smoothing the anisotropy of the surface relief is determined by the vicinal steps direction. At the initial stage of step-terraced morphology formation the kinetics of monatomic islands and pits growth agrees with the Ostwald ripening theory. At the final stage the size of islands and pits decreases due to their incorporation into the forming vicinal steps. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.