Terrain features

This page lists generated terrain features that are created in a Minecraft world.

Overworld

Hill

Hills can contain extreme slopes, cliffs, and caves. On an amplified world, hills are extremely common in all biomes except oceans.

• 

  A Windswept Hills biome.

• 

  A large overhang occasionally found in Windswept Hills biomes.

• 

  A Windswept Hills overhang with a floating island.

Mountain

Mountains are high elevation terrain that has jagged peaks and higher land.

Cliff

Cliffs are steep vertical slopes that can sometimes generate beside an ocean or a big lake.

• 

  A frozen cliff.

• 
• 
• 
• 

  A cliff generating shaped like a crater.

Fjord

Fjords happen when rivers cut through high-medium elevation terrain. Rivers are deeper here than usual.

• 

  A badlands fjord.

• 
• 

Floating island

Floating islands are structures that float in mid-air. Floating islands are normally just small chunks of floating dirt and stone found near cliffs, but on rare occasions they can be large structures that even have springs and trees on them. Floating islands are most frequently found in windswept hills biomes and their variants, as well windswept savannas.

• 

  A small floating island.

• 

  It is rarer to see large floating islands, especially those with natural features such as trees.

• 

  A cluster of large floating islands.

• 

  A small but tall floating island with water flowing down from it.

• 

  A floating island in a forest biome with a few trees growing on it.

• 

  A tree on a snowy floating island.

• 

  A large floating island with trees in the distance

Noise cave

Noise caves are generated using a noise. They come in the form of cheese caves, spaghetti caves, and noodle caves. By adjusting noise frequency, hollowness (for cheese caves), and thickness (for spaghetti caves, noodle caves, and noise pillars), noise caves can vary in extremely diverse ways. When generating noise caves, the game firstly generates a random noise field, and "smudges" it using a mathematical trick called Perlin noise. These processes then result in a 3D noise image. Noise pillars also generate inside cave blobs.

Noise caves are a part of the base terrain generation, and so do not intersect generated structures or mineral deposits. They are typically decorated with biome-specific features and decoration such as grass, sand, snow, or trees at higher y-levels, or dripstone pillars or clay deltas at lower y-levels. This is important, as cave noise is dually used to generate important Overworld terrain features such as overhangs or floating islands on the surface.

Surface

Surface layer

The uppermost layers of the terrain are converted to a biome-dependent material: usually grass blocks and dirt, or sand in deserts and beaches. Podzol is found in giant tree taiga, mycelium in mushroom field biomes, and red sand is found in the badlands biome. Sandstone is generated under the sand.

Erosion

In older versions of Minecraft, instead of being converted to dirt or sand, the top layer is stripped away, leaving an 'erosion' (aka. 'basin') of bare stone. Commonly, minerals can be found in these, generally coal ore and iron ore. If generated in a Badlands biome, gold ore can also be seen. Erosions appear in all dimensions. Due to a bug, this no longer occurs except in frozen oceans.

• 

  A naturally generated erosion.

• 

  A desert erosion.

• 

  A taiga erosion.

• 

  A snow-covered tundra erosion.

Strip

Strips are long stretches of blocks in certain biomes that replace the typical surface materials in these biomes. They can occur in stony shore biomes as strips of gravel, in stony peaks biomes as strips of calcite, in frozen peaks biomes as strips of packed ice, as well as in grove and snowy slopes biomes as strips of powder snow.

• 

  A strip of calcite in a stony peaks biome.

• 

  A strip of gravel in a stony shore biome.

Hoodoo

Hoodoos are tall spike-like structures found in badlands, consisting of six colors of terracotta. While this structure is found exclusively in eroded badlands, all badlands biomes actually have this structure, but set to false except for eroded badlands and can occasionally pass altitude layer 100.

• 

  Hoodoos in an eroded badlands biome.

• 

  Hoodoos in a Mesa Bryce biome in an older version of Minecraft.

• 

  Hoodoo render.

Iceberg

A large iceberg is a large terrain feature composed of packed ice and snow blocks. There is also a smaller feature known as a cone iceberg.

Large icebergs generate in frozen oceans and deep frozen oceans. They consist of packed ice, and can be topped with snow blocks. Icebergs generate in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from small islands to giant mountain-like icebergs. They can also generate with cave-like holes (these might be related to the carved recesses in cone icebergs) ​ in them, which sometimes pass through to the other side of the iceberg.

There are often blue ice features attached to them.

• 

  The first screenshot of icebergs.

• 

  A group of naturally generated icebergs.

• 

  An aerial view of a frozen ocean with icebergs.

• 

  An iceberg viewed from below.

• 

  A village close to some icebergs.

• 

  A cave inside an iceberg.

Carvers

• Carver caves – narrow, winding tunnels found underground in the Overworld and the Nether.
• Canyons – deep fissures that run through the ground.

Others

• Ore vein – a large, branching network of ore and rock.

The Nether

Lava sea

Lava seas are found at and below level 31 in the Nether. They make a large portion of the Nether and are extremely common. They can stretch for hundreds of blocks in any direction, and are usually bordered by netherrack, or occasionally soul sand, gravel, and/or magma blocks. Striders can spawn in lava seas.

Unlike with Overworld oceans, lava seas are not handled as a biome.

• 

  A few ghasts swimming in a lava sea.

Nether erosions

In the Nether, erosions generate the same size and shape as they do in the Overworld. Unlike their Overworld counterparts, however, Nether erosions replace the ground with netherrack instead of stone. Nether erosions can also expose ores, mainly nether quartz ore and nether gold ore.

Notably, erosions generate independent of the y-coordinate; if an erosion generates in an overhang in the Nether, an identical erosion is guaranteed to generate at the exact same x and z coordinates on the ground below such an overhang.

• 

  An erosion in a crimson forest, exposing nether quartz ore blob.

• 

  An erosion in a nether wastes.

Carvers

• Carver caves – narrow, winding tunnels found underground in the Overworld and the Nether.

The End

Central island

The center of the End is a large, asteroid-like island composed entirely of end stone, floating in the void. At a distance of 1000 blocks away, an endless expanse of additional islands begins, away from the main island. These consist of large islands, about the size of the main island, and smaller ones, which are usually thin and small.

• 

  Central island with a lone enderman.

Outer islands

The outer end islands are found 1000 blocks away from the central island. They vary in size from large islands to smaller "mini islands". Generated structures such as end cities and end ships spawn here, along with chorus trees and erosions. The player can be taken to the end islands through the end gateway.

• 

  Outer islands with chorus trees.

Obsidian platform

The obsidian platform is a square of obsidian that generates when an entity enters the End.

End erosions

Erosions generate in the End as they would in the Overworld and the Nether but they never expose any ores. End erosions may generate on both the central island and outer islands, and chorus trees can occasionally take root in the erosions.

• 

  An erosion generated on an outer End island.

History

[hide]Java Edition pre-Classic
Cave game tech test							Development on "Cave Game" started; caverns added.
[hide]Java Edition Classic
0.0.12a							Added ocean around map.
0.0.14a							Added trees. At this point they were simply stumps covered with a thin leaf layer.
0.0.15a (Multiplayer Test 1)							Trees have a new shape.
August 25, 2009							Video uploaded showing changed cavern generation; longer and narrower caverns, and bigger caves the deeper you travel.
							Surface lava lakes shown to be possible but unlikely, despite existing as early as 0.0.12a_03.
[hide]Java Edition Infdev
20100227-1414							Temporarily removed caves, trees and ores to test basic infinite world functionality.
20100320							Re-added trees and ores.
20100325-1545							Re-added caves.
							Redid mineral blobs.
20100327							Caves are removed again.
20100616							Caves are now again implemented.
[hide]Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.1							Caves can now be far bigger and more expansive.
v1.2.0			preview				Added the Nether but not all Nether-related generated structures.
v1.2.6							Added small lakes and rare lava pools, both on the surface and randomly in caves.
[hide]Java Edition Beta
1.8			Pre-release				Added huge mushrooms.
							Added river biomes and vast oceans.
							Sand and gravel beaches removed due to the changes in the terrain generation algorithm.
[hide]Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4				Added the End and End-related main island generated structures, including the End island, the obsidian platform, the end spikes and the exit portal.
1.1			12w01a				Sand beaches have made a return, but the way they look and generate are not the same as before.
1.2.1			12w07a				The generation of beaches has been greatly improved.
1.6.1			13w17a				Water oases no longer generate in deserts.
1.7.2			13w36a				Gravel beaches have been returned to the terrain.
							Mountains now generate as part of the "M" biome variants.
							The desert oases appear in the desert M biome.
							Moss stone boulders were added.
1.9			15w31a				Added the outer islands of the End.
							Added chorus trees.
							Added the end gateway portal.
1.13			18w08a				Caves and canyons can now generate underwater.
							Frozen Ocean have made a return, but without customized, they look and generate, but are not the same unused.
			18w10d				Added coral reefs.
			18w15a				Added icebergs.
1.16			20w06a				Added basalt pillars.
[hide]Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.1.0							Added sand and gravel beaches, oceans, frozen oceans, cliffs, mountains, erosions, blobs, springs, and trees.
v0.9.0			build 1				Added caves, lava pools, rivers, huge mushrooms, moss stone boulders, ice patches, and ice spikes.
							Frozen oceans no longer generate.
							Removed gravel beaches.
v0.12.1			build 1				Added the Nether, along with lava oceans, glowstone clusters, soul sand beaches, hidden lava, gravel beaches, and nether quartz blobs.
[hide]Pocket Edition
1.0.0			alpha 0.17.0.1				Added the End and End-related generated structures, including the End islands, the obsidian platform, the obsidian towers, the end fountain, end cities, end gateways, and chorus trees.
[hide]Bedrock Edition
1.2.0			beta 1.2.0.2				Added ravines.
1.4.0			beta 1.2.14.2				Added icebergs.
							Added coral reefs.
							Ravines can now generate underwater.
							Frozen oceans have made a return, but the way they look and generate are not the same as before.
			beta 1.2.20.1				Caves can now generate underwater.
1.16.0			beta 1.16.0.51				Added basalt pillars.
[hide]Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU5	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added ravines.
							Sand and gravel beaches removed due to the changes in the terrain generation algorithm.
TU9							Added the End along with End-related structures such as the End island, the obsidian platform, the obsidian towers, and the end fountain.
							Sand beaches have made a return, but the way they look and generate is not the same as before.
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12			Water oases no longer generate in deserts.
TU46	CU36	1.38	1.38	1.38	Patch 15		Added the outer islands of the End.
							Added chorus trees.
							Added the end gateway portal.
TU69		1.76	1.76	1.76	Patch 38		Added coral reefs and underwater caves and ravines.
[hide]New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.7.10							Added chorus trees.