Recovery and recrystallization of zircaloy-4 initially cold-rolled at 80% thickness reduction are studied. Deformed specimen underwent interrupted annealing treatments of 30 minutes at temperatures varying from 500 to 600degreesC. Evolution of microstructure is followed using micro-hardness measurements, X-ray diffraction and orientation imaging. It has been shown that both recovery and classical recrystallization occur in zircalloy-4. Recovery is associated to areas where the <(c) over bar > axes are close to the normal direction. The classical recrystallization component (0001) <11 (2) over bar0> is already present in the deformed and recovered states. It growth during annealing is mainly observed in areas where orientation variations are large, and EBSD quality factor very low. The orientations of the new grains show some spread of <(c) over bar > axis from ND.