Several non-polar a-plane GaN films had been grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) on different designed metal organic chemical deposition (MOCVD) GaN templates, which exhibited various ridgelike sidewall facets surface morphologies. The templates induced a lateral growth at the early stage of the HVPE growth, and resulted in a kind of maskless epitaxy lateral overgrown (ELO) process. It is found that the dislocation reduced differently along [1 0 0 0] and [1100] directions in these HVPE a-plane GaN layers. In [0 0 0 1] direction, the dislocation reduction resulted from the optimal surface roughness value of the template. In [1100] direction, the inclined facet might be a main factor for the dislocation reduction in HVPE-GaN films. The maskless ELO process had a significant influence on decreasing the dislocation density. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.