The spatiotemporal control of cell divisions is a key factor in epithelial morphogenesis and patterning. Mao et al (2013) now describe how differential rates of proliferation within the Drosophila wing disc epithelium give rise to anisotropic tissue tension in peripheral/proximal regions of the disc. Such global tissue tension anisotropy in turn determines the orientation of cell divisions by controlling epithelial cell elongation. Oriented cell divisions play important roles in the establishment of the animal body plan by both influencing tissue morphogenesis and generating cellular diversity. Generally, the direction of the cell division plane is determined by the orientation of the mitotic spindle prior to cytokinesis. The observation that the mitotic spindle in most animal cell types aligns with the cell's longest axis has led to the formulation of the ‘long‐axis‐rule’, postulating that cell shape anisotropy is the main determinant of spindle orientation (Minc et al , 2011). However, cell shape anisotropy is unlikely to be the only determinant since many cell types round up during mitosis, thereby losing their shape anisotropy and others do not follow the long‐axis‐rule at all. In such …