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.

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  A Windswept Hills biome.

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  A large overhang occasionally found in Windswept Hills biomes.

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  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.

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  A frozen cliff.

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  A cliff generating shaped like a crater.

Fjord[]

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

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  A badlands fjord.

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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.

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  A small floating island.

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

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  A cluster of large floating islands.

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

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

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  A tree on a snowy floating island.

Noise cave[]

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[]

Occasionally, instead of being converted to dirt or sand, the top layer is stripped away, leaving an 'erosion' (aka. 'basin') of bare stone. They occur more often in forests or plains and occasionally contain water. 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.

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  A naturally generated erosion.

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  A desert erosion.

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  A taiga erosion.

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  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.

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  A strip of calcite in a stony peaks biome.

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  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.

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  Hoodoos in an eroded badlands biome.

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

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  Hoodoo render.

Iceberg[]

An iceberg is a large terrain feature composed of packed ice and snow block. There is also a feature known as an iceberg, see Iceberg (feature).

Icebergs generate in frozen oceans and deep frozen oceans. They consist of packed ice, and can be topped with snow block. 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 in them, which sometimes pass through to the other side of the iceberg.

There are often blue ice features attached to them.

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  The first screenshot of icebergs.

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  A group of naturally generated icebergs.

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  An aerial view of a frozen ocean with icebergs.

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  An iceberg viewed from below.

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  A village close to some icebergs.

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  A cave inside an iceberg.

Carvers[]

• Carver caves – large tunnels found underground in the Overworld and the Nether.
• Canyons – deep long cracks

Others[]

• Ore vein: A long streak 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.^[1]

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  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 a 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.

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

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  An erosion in a warped forest.

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  An erosion in a nether wastes.

Carver[]

• Carver caves – large 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 more 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.

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  Central island with a lone enderman.

Outer island[]

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 plants and erosions. The player can be taken to the end islands through the end gateway.

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  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, with the exception being that they never expose any ores. End erosions may generate on both the central island and outer islands, and chorus plants can occasionally take root in the erosions.

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  An End Erosion generated on the main island of the End.

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  An End Erosion generated on an outer End island.

History[]

This section needs cleanup to comply with the style guide. ^[discuss]

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Reason: move features to Feature

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Reason: Add all 1.17-1.19 terrain feature

Videos[]

References[]