The present work systematically investigates the influence of crystal orientation on deformation response of quasi-single crystal zinc using nanoindentation. Both Berkovich and cono-spherical indenters were used to extract the quantitative information as well as to elucidate the deformation mechanisms with crystal orientations. The Young's modulus of zinc was highly anisotropic and increased as orientation changed from basal (38 ± 2 GPa) to prismatic (103 ± 6 GPa) orientation. Deformation mechanisms, such as slip, twinning and formation of sub-structure were explained by using slip trace analysis and a combination of variety of characterization techniques, such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and orientation imaging microscopy (OIM). Influence of crystal orientation on twinning load, extent of pile-up/sink-in and indent morphology has been discerned. Changing the orientation from basal to prismatic not only increased the pile-up height/sink-in depths but also resulted in their anisotropic behavior, which were further correlated with twinning and type of slip systems activated. © 2020