The boundary behavior of a family of hierarchical models of linearly elastic, isotropic plates is studied. The hierarchical models are obtained by spectral semidiscretization of the displacement fields in the transverse direction and strain energy projection. The well known Reissner-Mindlin model is contained in the hierarchy as a special case. A decomposition of the boundary layers of any model in the hierarchy into a bending and a torsion layer, both of which are model dependent, is given. It is shown further that the bending and torsion layers arise as Galerkin approximations of certain (nonlinear) eigenvalue problems in the plate cross section with the subspaces used to derive the hierarchical model. It is shown that the bending layers converge, as the order of the plate model tends to infinity, to the so-called Papkovich functions on an elastic strip.The regularity of the solution on polygonal plates is investigated for the whole hierarchy of plate models and shown to equal the regularity of the plane elasticity problem.The mathematical problem of plate modeling in elasticity has a history of more than 150 years, starting with the derivation of the biharmonic equation by Germain [11] and Kirchhoff [19] to explain plate bending phenomena. For a long time, this remained the most widely used model until Reissner [30] and later Mindlin [26] suggested the more sophisticated model which carries their names. Contrary to the Germain-Kirchhoff model, it consists of a singularly perturbed, coupled system of three second order differential equations. The derivations of these models were based upon intuitive mechanical principles and a mathematical justification of the Germain-Kirchhoff model as zero thickness limit of the three-dimensional elasticity problem was done only much later (see [9] and the references there).With the advent of modern digital computers, the Finite Element Method (FEM) and the need for highly accurate and efficient solutions of finite thickness plate problems, the use of a flexible hierarchy of models of variable order and complexity became feasible and was suggested and analyzed in a