A facile and effective aqueous chemical synthesis approach towards well control of periodical ZnO textures in large-scale areas is reported, by which considerable adjusting of surface wettability can be realized. With the assistance of polystyrene spheres monolayer template and morphology control agent, we succeeded in preparing a series of ordered ZnO microbowls with different sag height. It was found that the contact angle could be well adjusted by changing geometry of microbowl. Such novel, ordered arrays are expected to exploit the great potentiality in waterproof or self-cleaning micro/nanodevices, and even microfluidic devices. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.