A shared‐aperture dual‐wideband dual‐polarized planar microstrip array is investigated.The operating frequencies are at L‐ and X‐bands. For both bands, stacked patches are selected as the radiating elements to meet the bandwidth requirements. A low‐profile design of a planar microstrip array with 2 × 1 L‐band elements interleaved with 16 × 8 X‐band elements has been achieved. The design is discussed in detail, and the measured results are presented. The measured bandwidth of VSWR < 2 reaches 8.1 and 13% for L‐ and X‐bands, respectively. The measured isolation between the L‐ and X‐band is below −35 dB, and the isolation between the cross‐pol ports is below −26 and −24 dB for L‐ and X‐band, respectively. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:486–491, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26579