World Spawn

The World Spawn is where players initially spawn in the Minecraft world.

Spawn

World spawning area. White represents the extent of singleplayer, blue represents multiplayer, and yellow represents the world spawn point.

New players initially spawn within a small area surrounding the world spawn point when the server is not in Adventure mode. Upon death or return from the End dimension, the player respawns within this area unless the player's individual spawn point changed (by using a bed, respawn anchor, or /spawnpoint ).

This area is 21×21 blocks by default in Java Edition and Minecraft Education or 11×11 in Bedrock Edition, but can be changed by the spawnRadius game rule or world settings.

The respawn radius has the range of 0 to 99,999,999. However, anything above 128 will be reset to 128 when rejoining the world.

When the respawn radius is to 0, the player spawns in the crosshair where the four blocks meet. When set to 1, the player always spawns on the northwest of those four blocks. Afterwards, normal spawning rules apply.

On the discontinued Old world type‌, the maximum spawn radius is 256 blocks instead.

Bedrock Edition's respawn radius setting.

When the player first loads into the world or respawns, the game searches within the world spawn area and tries to place the player on a random grass block. Upon spawning, the player is placed on the highest valid spawn point block of the X and Z spawn coordinates, regardless of elevation. If a grass block was invalid, due to being obstructed by a block above it, the game checks the closest two free spaces from below the grass block and the player spawns there. However, if there are no valid grass blocks, the player spawns directly at the world spawn point. The player is still placed at the highest valid block at the world spawn point. This can result in players falling into the void after spawning if there are no blocks at that location.

The world spawn point is also the center of the permanent spawn chunks.

The world spawn point can be changed using the /setworldspawn command.

Bedrock Edition world spawn search

In Bedrock Edition, when a player creates a new world, the world spawn point is restricted to specific biomes. The algorithm starts searching from coordinate 0,0, continuing outward until an acceptable biome is found for the world spawn point. Using add-ons, a rare biome can be designated to cause the player to spawn at a distant location, but the game crashes if the biome does not exist or cannot generate.

The algorithm searches for these biomes:

• Plains
• Forest
• Dark Forest
• Birch Forest
• Taiga
• Jungle
• Desert
• Savanna (only regular variants)
• Badlands
• Meadow
• Cherry Grove
• Grove

The player spawns within a 5-block radius of the point selected in the chosen biome, sometimes resulting in the player spawning outside the intended spawn biome, ending up in a beach, river, or swamp biome. It is also possible (but rare) for a player to spawn initially underwater and start drowning.

A search for a valid world spawn biome is not performed for Flat and Old world-types.

Adventure mode

When the server's settings specify the default game mode as Adventure (using the server.properties), then the normal spawning mechanic is ignored, and players are spawned directly on the world spawn point. This includes the X, Y, and Z coordinates, even if there is no block there, and even if there are blocks above it.

If the Y coordinate is not within a valid spawning area, then the server looks up until it finds one, up to a maximum of Y=256. If there is space to spawn, but it is in mid-air, the player spawns in mid-air, even falling into the void if there is a hole.

Location

There are several ways to determine the world spawn point:

• A compass (that hasn't been assigned to a lodestone) always points to the world spawn point.
• Doing the commands /gamerule spawnRadius 0 then /kill.
• If commands are disabled, remove all the grass blocks in the 21×21 spawn area (or place a block above them to make them invalid), make sure the individual spawn point is disabled, and die.
• Entities, other than players, falling into the exit portal in the End land exactly at the world spawn point. Items thrown in mark the spot in the Overworld. Players spawn like they normally do, allowing this action to be used to perform the above without dying, and thus can be performed in hardcore mode.
• Mods or external programs, such as NBTExplorer or MCEdit, can also be used to find and set the world spawn point.

Individual spawn

The individual spawn point of the player can be changed by sleeping in a bed, using a respawn anchor, or using the /setworldspawn or /spawnpoint command. If the individual spawning area of the player is obstructed upon death, the player respawns at the world spawn.

Sleeping in a bed allows for leniency in obstruction, in that the player respawns on other blocks near the bed if the original point becomes blocked. The same is true for the respawn anchor. If the spawn point set via /setworldspawn or /spawnpoint becomes obstructed, the player is not given this leniency in respawning. If the block obstructing the player's spawn point is a bed in the Overworld or a respawn anchor in the Nether, regardless of if the bed or respawn anchor was used to set the spawnpoint, this leniency will still be given.

For the spawn point to be considered unobstructed, certain criteria need to be met. Generally, for a spawn point set via /setworldspawn or /spawnpoint, there must be a two-block-tall space at the spawn point which is free of solid blocks. However, there are also some solid blocks which do not obstruct spawning, some examples including the heavy core, candles, and player and mob heads. Lava and water will also obstruct the spawn point despite being non-solid, however, aquatic plants, such as kelp and seagrass, will not, even when in water. The player will always be spawned in the center of the spawn point block and ¹⁄₁₀ of a block above the bottom of the block, even if there is a non-obstructing solid block occupying the space, such that the player can sometimes be spawned inside of a block they would otherwise have collision with. Unlike when respawning around a bed or respawn anchor, the block below the spawn point is not considered, meaning the player can be spawned on top of dangerous blocks such as magma blocks, or over a non-solid block. The state of any blocks occupying the two-block-tall spawning space is also not considered. For example, an open fence gate will still obstruct the spawn point even though the player has no collision with it.

List of Non-Obstructing Blocks For A Spawn Point Set With Commands[show]

• Air (air, cave air, and void air)
• All banners
• All beds (in the Overworld only; will apply bed respawn positioning logic)
• All buttons
• All candles
• All carpets (including moss carpet and pale moss carpet)
• All coral plants and coral fans (including dead variants)
• All crops
• All flower pots
• All flowers (including two-high flowers)
• All mushrooms and fungi
• All player and mob heads
• All portals (end portal, end gateway, and nether portal)
• All pressure plates
• All rails
• All saplings (including azaleas and flowering azaleas, but not bamboo saplings)
• All signs (including hanging signs and wall hanging signs)
• All torches and wall torches (torches, soul torches, and redstone torches)
• All vines (vines, twisting vines, weeping vines, and cave vines)
• Big dripleaf
• Big dripleaf stem
• Chorus flower
• Chorus plant
• Cocoa
• Crimson roots and warped roots
• Dead bush
• Fire and soul fire
• Frogspawn
• Hanging roots
• Heavy core
• Kelp
• Ladder
• Lever
• Light
• Lily pad
• Nether sprouts
• Pale hanging moss
• Pink petals
• Powder snow
• Redstone comparator
• Redstone repeater
• Resin clump
• Respawn anchor (in the Nether only; will apply respawn anchor respawn positioning logic, even if uncharged)
• Scaffolding
• Sea pickle
• Seagrass
• Short grass and tall grass
• Small dripleaf
• Snow (any number of layers)
• Spore blossom
• Structure void
• Sugar cane
• Sweet berry bush
• Tripwire
• Tripwire hook

History

[hide]Java Edition Infdev
20100327							The player now drops their inventory and respawns at the spawn location upon death, rather than having to reload the last save.
20100611							The player now only spawns on sand blocks. As a result, the player will often spawn in beaches, but spawning on deserts is also a possibility.
[hide]Java Edition Beta
1.4_01							Beds now act as respawn points for players.
1.8			Pre-release				The player's spawn point is now bound to a specific biome rather than to any sand block. The player can spawn in forest, swamp and taiga biomes.
[hide]Java Edition
1.1			12w01a				The biomes valid for the player's spawn location were adjusted. Players can now spawn in forest, plains, taiga, forest hills and taiga hills biomes.
1.2.1			12w03a				The player's spawn point can now also be located in jungle and jungle hills biomes.
1.4.2			12w32a				Added the command /spawnpoint.
1.7.2			13w43a				Added the command /setworldspawn.
1.9			15w51a				Added the game rule spawnRadius to control the size of the world spawn area.
1.15			19w36a				Added the game rule doImmediateRespawn.
1.18			21w42a				Reworked world spawn selection algorithm. Players now spawn according to the same climate parameters that control biome placement and world generation: players should no longer spawn in the ocean or some other inconvenient locations.
1.20.5			24w03a				Added game rule spawnChunkRadius to control the size of the spawn chunks.
							The default spawn chunk propagation is now 3×3 instead of 19×19.
[hide]Pocket Edition Alpha
0.1.0							Added the world spawn point. The spawn point is always located in the center of the world (X/Z: 128).
0.9.0			build 1				The player's spawn point is now located in specific biomes in the Infinite world type.
							On the Old world type, the player still spawns on the center of the world, but the exact position is no longer consistent between worlds. Instead, the position is determined by the world seed.
[hide]Bedrock Edition
1.9.0							Added the Immediate Respawn game rule.
[hide]Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU1	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added the world spawn point.
TU12							The player's spawn point can now also be located in jungle and jungle hills biomes.
?	?	?	?	?	?		Added a host option that allows players to change the world spawn point.​
			1.88				Added the Immediate Respawn host option.

Issues

Issues relating to "World Spawn" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• In Java Edition, the world spawn (the point where players spawn if they have no valid bed spawn) is usually a random (seed determined) point between -500 and +500 on the X and Z axis. If the chosen point is in water (due to nothing but ocean biomes in the -500 to +500 range), a second attempt is made between -1500 to +1500. If this fails due to ocean, the game gives up and puts the world spawn in the middle of the ocean (still at the surface) (attempting to play the flat lands preset Water World does this, for example). Normally, a player who spawns in the water does so near the shore because the world spawn itself picked a spot there.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 

  An ideal spawn location, with trees and animals nearby.

• 

  A non-ideal spawn location. In a desert, unless a player finds an exposed mineshaft, it is much more difficult to find wood.

• 

  A spawn location on an island, with trees nearby.

• 

  A dark forest's dense foliage can protect hostile mobs from sun, making this biome dangerous. Note the village on the left.

External links

• How spawning, dying and respawning works in Minecraft – Minecraft.net on September 22, 2023