AbstractPoint intercept techniques are commonly used to estimate the proportion of area covered by an organism or substrate. Although many different methods of choosing point co‐ordinates have been suggested, some more suitable than others, this article examines three common and one novel point allocation strategy in the context of estimating the proportion cover of an area which is much longer than it is wide. It was found that some commonly used methods are less efficient than the novel method and in some cases by a substantial margin. Guidelines are also presented for choosing a sampling strategy and estimating sample size requirements for sampling areas which are much longer than they are wide. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.