All Minecraft biomes, explained | Digital Trends (2024)

The randomly generated world of Minecraft has technically been limitless since the beginning, but Mojang has made it even bigger over time by adding more diversity to the things you can discover in the world. Over the years, we’ve had new items, recipes, monsters, animals, and even entire biomes integrated into the game. Biomes are always the most exciting because they introduce an entirely new ecosystem that brings back that fresh feeling of exploration. We have a lot more than just the few basic biomes the game launched with, so let’s run through them all and what makes them unique.

Note that there are many sub-biomes within many larger ones, so we will do our best to consolidate them all and list anything unique within them as logically as possible.

Plains

The plains are your default biome in Minecraft and are mostly clear grasslands with some basic trees, dirt, stone, flowers, and animals like chickens, cows, donkeys, horses, pigs, rabbits, and sheep. Mobs to be on the lookout for include creepers, skeletons, spiders, zombies, witches, endermen, and occasionally slimes. If it is the snowy variation of the plains, you can also find polar bears.

Forest

There are tons of different forest types in Minecraft, making them the easiest to find. The different subtypes include birch forests, dark forests, flower forests, and old growth forests. All forests have plenty of birch and oak logs, leaves, grass, flowers, peony, and rose bushes, however, the flower forest also has Allium and bee nests while the dark forest has dark oak logs and mushroom blocks. There are also chickens, cows, pigs, rabbits, sheep, and wolves (except in birch and old growth forests). This biome has the same mob list as plains of creepers, skeletons, spiders, zombies, witches, and endermen.

Caves

Caves come in a variety of flavors, such as lush, dripstone, and deep dark. There are almost too many resources to list found in caves, but some unique things in some biomes are flowering azalea leaves, moss blocks, dripleaf, spore blossom, glow berries, dripstone, and sculk. Caves are packed with mobs, but the deep dark is where you can find wardens.

Jungle

Jungles look a lot like forests, however, they are completely overgrown with vines, making them very difficult to navigate. You can find plenty of vines, ferns, jungle logs, cocoa, melons, bamboo, and oak here. The wildlife consists of ocelots, parrots, pandas, chickens sheep, pigs, and cows. Alongside the normal mobs in most biomes, you can also find slimes here.

Cherry Grove

If you find yourself in a world of pink flowers and trees, you’re in a cherry grove. This is the best place to find cherry logs and leaves, pink petals, and bees. There are no special mobs to speak of.

Desert

The desert biome might be the easiest to spot since it is so flat and almost entirely comprised of sand. But there’s more to it than meets the eye, including cactus, dead bushes, sandstone, and husks replacing zombies. All the other standard mobs can spawn here as well.

Savannah

A savannah biome looks like a dried-out version of the plains, but with a bit more natural growth. There are not a ton of resources here, mostly grass, tall grass, and acacia and oak logs. Besides the default mob list, you can encounter pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, pigs, sheep, and chickens as well.

Taiga

The taiga biome is a lot like a forest, but different enough to warrant its own section. Unique resources here include ferns, large ferns, sweet berry bushes, and spruce logs. You can find sheep, chickens, pigs, cows, foxes, wolves, rabbits, and all the normal hostile mobs.

Swamp

Swamps are another old biome that have many shallow ponds scattered around. Besides normal wood, you can find lily pads, clay, vines, blue orchids, and mushrooms, while mangrove swamps also have mangrove logs, propagules, moss, roots, and mud blocks. The regular mobs spawn here, though you can find more witches in huts, as well as sheep, chickens, pigs, cows, and frogs.

Beach

Beaches are on the borderline of being a biome since they’re just a spit of sand on the edge of the water. There’s nothing much besides sand, sandstone, gravel, clay, and sugar cane except for turtles. The standard mobs will show up here as well.

Ocean

There are many different versions of the ocean biome, including deep, warm, lukewarm, cold, frozen, and more. For the most part, however, you’re going to find the same basic things like gravel, sand, dirt, clay, seagrass, and kelp. Underwater creatures like dolphins, squids, cod, and other fish appear depending on which type you’re in.

River

Rivers are different from other water-based biomes since they are full of source blocks that keep the water flowing. In addition to water source blocks, not much of note is here to get. There’s grass, dirt, clay, sand, gravel, seagrass, and sugar cane. Being a water biome, drowned can spawn in the water, along with salmon and squids besides the normal mobs.

Badlands

Perhaps the most visually striking biome in the game is the bright orange and red badland. This region is highly valuable for red sand, terracotta, gold, and cactus. There are no special mobs to be wary of outside the normal ones found in most biomes.

Mushroom Fields

One of the more rare biomes to stumble upon is the mushroom fields. This region has materials you can’t get anywhere else, such as mycelium, alongside mushroom blocks and the creepy mooshrooms.

The End

The End is not very large and doesn’t have much to find, so it is mainly there to fight the Ender Dragon. However, you can get all the end stone, chorus plants, and chorus flowers you want. Besides the dragon, the place is packed with enderman, so stay alert.

The Nether

The Nether was once mostly a single biome, but now has a few varieties. These include the wastes, soul sand valley, and some forest types. Common resources here are netherrack, glowstone, soul sand, nethar quartz, nethar gold, magma, lava, bone blocks, and much more. These are some of the most dangerous locations in the game due to the piglins, zombified piglins, ghasts, magma cubes, endermen, striders, and hoglins.

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