Growth of GaN quantum dots (QDs) on polar and semipolar GaN substrates is a promising technology for efficient nitride-based light emitting diodes (LED). The QDs crystal orientation typically repeats the polarity of the substrate. In case of non-polar or semipolar substrates, the polarity of QDs is not obvious. In this article, the polarity of GaN QDs and of underlying layers was investigated nondestructively by X-ray photoelectron diffraction (XPD). Polar and semipolar GaN/Al0.5Ga0.5N heterostructures were grown on the sapphire substrates with (0001) and (1 (2) over bar 00) orientations by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Polar angle dependence of N 1s core-level photoelectron intensities were measured from GaN QDs and compared with the corresponding experimental curves from free-standing GaN crystals. It is confirmed experimentally, that the crystalline orientation of polar (0001) GaN QDs follows the orientation of the (0001) sapphire substrate. In case of semipolar GaN QDs grown on (1 (1) over bar 00) sapphire substrate, the (11 (2) over bar2) polarity of QDs was determined. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.