9999999% has enabled the rapid development of modern information technologies within the last 70 years. [1,2] To meet the more complicated requirement in the coming 5G and big-data era, many other advanced electronic materials have been developed with promising applications in high-level multifunctional chips. They include GaN, [3,4] SiC, [5] diamond, [6] AlN, [7] ZnO, [8] 2D van der Waals (vdW) layered materials, [9] and perovskites. [10] However, preparing highly crystalline mono-oriented films or crystals with minimized defects is still a major bottleneck for these applications. [11][12][13][14][15] Direct epitaxial (Epi) growth has been widely explored to prepare highly oriented or monocrystal thin films in many material systems. The well-demonstrated examples include epitaxial wide bandgap semiconducting nitrides by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), [4,16] epitaxial oxides (e.g., ZnO, In 2 O 3 , and Ga 2 O 3 ) by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [17] or molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), [18] and 2D vdW-layered epitaxial films (e.g., graphene, [19] h-BN, [20] MoS 2 , [21] and WS 2 [22] ) by (MO)CVD. Generally, direct epitaxial deposition can be divided into three steps: 1) mono-oriented nucleation, 2) grain enlargement, and 3) formation of highly oriented continuous film. [21,[23][24][25] The epitaxial growth process has a strict requirement not only on the growth atmosphere, but also on the substrate. Well-designed MOCVD, PLD, and MBE systems could provide a precisely controlled atmosphere, but the highly oriented film can only be grown on single-crystal substrates with minor lattice mismatch. [26] For vdW-layered 2D materials, metal substrates are usually needed. For example, graphene and h-BN are usually grown on singlecrystal Cu substrate, [19,20] and single-crystal MoS 2 was recently demonstrated to grow on mono-oriented Au(111) surface. [21] However, these films must be transferred to fabricate devices, which raises a big concern about metal residue contamination. [27] Therefore, these traditional direct epitaxial growth techniques still have many limitations.This manuscript presents a unique process called "lattice orientation heredity" (LOH) for preparing various highlyoriented films, including 2D materials. Our process ensures that the lattice orientation of product films can be inherited by chemical conversion of precursor oxide films. Our process takesThe ability to control lattice orientation is often an essential requirement in the growth of both 2D van der Waals (vdW) layered and nonlayered thin films. Here, a unique and universal phenomenon termed "lattice orientation heredity" (LOH) is reported. LOH enables product films (including 2D-layered materials) to inherit the lattice orientation from reactant films in a chemical conversion process, excluding the requirement on the substrate lattice order. The process universality is demonstrated by investigating the lattice transformations in the carbonization, nitridation, and sulfurization of epitaxial MoO 2 , ZnO, and In 2 O 3 thin films....