Summary Two-dimensional patterning of the follicular epithelium in Drosophila oogenesis is required for the formation of three-dimensional eggshell structures. Our analysis of a large number of published gene expression patterns in the follicle cells suggested that they follow a simple combinatorial code, based on six spatial building blocks and the operations of union, difference, intersection, and addition. The building blocks are related to the distribution of the inductive signals, provided by the highly conserved EGFR and DPP pathways. We demonstrated the validity of the code by testing it against a set of newly identified expression patterns, obtained in a large-scale transcriptional profiling experiment. Using the proposed code, we distinguished 36 distinct patterns for 81 genes expressed in the follicular epithelium and characterized their joint dynamics over four stages of oogenesis. This work provides the first systematic analysis of the diversity and dynamics of two-dimensional gene expression patterns in a developing tissue.