[Top 10] Minecraft Best Biome

Updated:

15 Jul 2020

10. Swamp

If you’re looking to harvest slimes and lily pads you’ve come to the right place. You can expect to find lots of vine-covered oak trees, shallow patches of water dotted with lily pads, and the occasional swamp hut in this biome. In each swamp hut you can find a crafting table, a cauldron, and a flower pot with a red mushroom in it, and a black cat and a witch spawn in each one upon world generation.

Water in the swamp takes on a greenish tint compared to the other biomes, and mushrooms and sugarcane are the most prevalent food ingredients to be found. Lily pads grow exclusively here and can be very useful if you want a moat around your house with a path to the door, a bridge across a well-traveled river or lake, or a way to walk through your crop farm without having to go swimming. Slimes also exclusively spawn here and drop slimeballs when killed, but beware if you’re coming to the swamp at night to harvest them - hanging vines and water patches make quick getaways difficult, and zombies can turn into drowned in the shallow pools. Not to mention how much fun skeletons in water are to deal with.

What’s Special About the Swamp

• Swamp huts

• Slime mobs

• Lily pads

• Blue orchids

• Green water

Swamp Details

• Temperature: generally 0.8

• Can have +/- hills

• Usually about sea level

• All main food mobs present

9. Dark Forest

This biome is characterized by densely packed dark oak trees and the occasional giant mushroom. The canopy often overlaps to form a continuous cover, and the darkness level can drop down low enough for hostile mobs to spawn even during the day. You can find all of the normal mobs and resources in this biome, with one notable exception: the woodland mansion.

Woodland mansions are only found in dark forests, and while they are rare these treasure troves are the main reason dark forests earned a place in the top ten. They’re that good. Woodland mansions are the one of two places you can find a totem of undying (evokers can drop them as well), and they can have any combination of over 55 rooms. 16 of the room types will have chests and 2 of them will have diamond blocks, and the loot is similar to what you would find in a desert or jungle pyramid.

What’s Special About the Dark Forest

• Woodland mansions

• Giant mushrooms

• Dark oak trees

• Potential for hostile mob spawn during the day

Dark Forest Details

• Temperature: 0.7

• Can have +/- hills

• All food mobs present

8. Desert

Sand. Sand everywhere. While that certainly makes up the majority of the desert biome, you can also find cacti, dried plants that drop sticks when destroyed, sandstone, and the occasional water pool or lava pit. While seemingly barren for resources, this biome offers multiple unique features: desert wells – which are small sandstone structures with water inside, desert villages – with villagers willing to trade all manner of items for emeralds, pillager outposts – with hostile mobs that will grant you certain status effects if killed, and desert pyramids. Desert pyramids are a great way to find all manner of loot including saddles and enchanted books, and rare resources like diamonds.

The best part of the desert biome isn’t what it has, but rather what it doesn’t. Relatively flat for long stretches without trees, this is prime monster hunting territory. Spiders will impale themselves on cacti and you can spot creepers and husks, the desert version of zombies, coming from a mile away. Once the sun rises you can easily see where all the dead mob drops are and collect them, and you can quickly harvest rotten flesh to trade with the local villagers. Bonus points – it doesn’t rain here.

What’s Special About the Desert

• Desert pyramids

• Desert wells

• Villages and pillager outposts

• Cacti

• Husks

• No rain

Desert Details

• Temperature: 2.0

• Can have +/- hills

• Can have +/- lakes

• Rabbits only passive mob

7. Plains

Talk about prime real estate, the plains are one of the best places to undertake large crafting projects as they are nice and (relatively) flat with no trees or other obstacles to worry about removing. You may have to fill in the occasional pool of water or lava, but otherwise you’re good to go. The plains are also good for monster hunting though not quite as ideal as the desert, they have villages and pillager outposts, but their main draw is a passive mob that can only be found in one other biome: horses.

Horses are by far the best mode of transportation if you’re not in creative mode. Minecart tracks are faster, but the amount of resources you have to sink into building them makes horses a much more favorable alternative. The only problem with horses is you have to have a saddle to ride them, and they only spawn in certain structures like desert pyramids and mineshafts.

What’s Special About the Plains

• Horses

• Villages and pillager outposts

• Flat, good for building

• Bee nests

Plains Details

• Temperature: 0.8

• No hills

• All major food mobs present

6. Jungle

Welcome to the jungle, we’ve got ocelots. What are ocelots you ask? They are adorable, skittish little creatures that you can tame into common house cats. What’s better, they will then follow you around and scare off creepers that try to sneak up on you. These ocelots can be found prowling the tall, vine-covered jungle trees that are characteristic of this biome. Brush trees also spawn at ground level, making most of your trek through the jungle occur in the canopy.

In addition to fuzzy creeper repellents you can also find cocoa pods, parrots, bamboo, and jungle pyramids exclusively in this biome. It’s also one of the few places melons naturally generate. Jungle pyramids let you feel like Indiana Jones as you solve puzzles and dodge booby traps to gather their loot, and like desert pyramids they can have some very nice items to claim. Jungles can be hard to navigate through thanks to their dense foliage and hanging vines, and they are likely to harbor hostile mobs under their broad trees after the night has passed. Despite that, their high number of unique resources makes them a must-find in any world.

What’s Special About the Jungle

• Jungle pyramids

• Ocelots

• Cocoa pods

• Melons

• Parrots

• Jungle trees

• Bamboo

• The sky actually becomes lighter in the jungle

Jungle Details

• Temperature: 0.95

• Can have +/- hills

• Often include lakes

• All main food mobs present

• Somewhat uncommon biome

5. Nether Wastes

You could dedicate a whole article just to the Nether, so I’ll keep it brief. Lava everywhere, lots of different resources and blocks, lots of different hostile mobs, incompatible with long-term survival. You have to build a Nether portal in the Overworld before you can access the Nether, but it’s well worth it once you do. If you’re a potions master odds are you’re going to be spending a bunch of time in the Nether hunting ghasts and blazes. Blazes only spawn generally in Nether fortresses, which generate periodically throughout the Nether wastes biome.

Glowstone, Nether quartz, and magma blocks are notable blocks to harvest, and the hostile mob drops can be very useful as well. I don’t recommend going to the Nether without diamond armor and a bow, and I certainly don’t recommend it in hardcore mode unless you’ve made peace with losing your world.

What’s Special About the Nether

• Nether fortresses

• Special blocks and resources (glow stone, netherrack, soul sand, etc.)

• Special mobs (zombie pigmen, wither skeletons, magma cubes, etc.)

• Cannot be accessed without a portal

• You cannot place water in the Nether

Nether Details

• It’s a different dimension

• Temperature: 2.0

• Multiple sub-biomes

• Lava lakes throughout

4. Warm Ocean

Part of more recent updates, the ocean biomes add another level of complexity to the game and none more so than the warm ocean biome. You can find all manner of aquatic life including sponges, sea cucumbers, corals, dolphins, turtles and drowned. Since drowned live exclusively in water they are protected from the sun, and these swimming zombies are sure to pay you a visit as you explore and pillage this rich biome. They especially like to hang around warm underwater ruins.

Underwater ruins come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but all have at least one chest buried in them with good loot prospects inside. You can also find shipwrecks with one or more chests that can contain treasure maps, but ocean monuments – the rough underwater equivalent of a woodland mansion – can only be found in deep ocean biomes. The diversity of other resources and the potential for shipwrecks and underwater ruins more than makes up for the lack of ocean monuments in the warm ocean biome, but if you’re really hankering to fight a few guardians it should just be a matter of moving to deeper waters.

What’s Special About the Warm Ocean

• Sea creatures

• Unique ocean blocks and resources

• Warm underwater ruins

• Shipwrecks

• Water at surface has a green tint

Warm Ocean Details

• Temperature: 0.5

• Most resources below sea level

• Sand floor

• Max depth around 15 blocks

• A lukewarm ocean auto generates between land and this sub-biome

3. Wooded Mountains

Ah, the mountains. Giant, peaceful, and full of emeralds. Oh yes, you read that right. Mountainous biomes are the only ones that emerald ore naturally spawns in, and that coupled with a copious number of cave systems makes them ideal to go mining in. You do have to watch out for infested stone blocks in the mountains that will sprout silverfish, but these hostile mobs are low-damage and easily disposed of. Coal and iron ore can be found in abundance and mountainous biomes also have the added bonus of llama passive mobs, which can be tamed and used to transport large quantities of resources.

So why the wooded mountain sub-biome? This gives you all the benefits of the mountains with additional wood resources for building and crafting. You don’t have to schlep up and down the mountains to get wood – you have everything right in front of you.

What’s Special About the Mountains

• Emerald ore

• Silverfish

• Llamas

• Caves everywhere

• Snow

Wooded Mountain details

• Temperature: 0.2

• High elevation - snow instead of rain

• All main food mobs present

2. Snowy Taiga

In this winter wonderland you’ll find a spruce forest covered in a perpetual dusting of snow, and water pools trapped under ice. Rain is replaced by snow here so bring your shovel, because you’ll get more snowballs than you could ever need in this biome.This is a great place to build your base camp with plenty of trees, caves, and generated structures. In the snowy taiga you will find igloos – snow block structures with a hidden basement containing a potion stand, a chest with a golden apple, a villager, and a zombie villager. You can also find your standard villages and pillager outposts here as well.

Remember how tamed ocelots scare away creepers? A wild wolf and all of its pack mates will attack you if provoked, but a tamed wolf will attack any hostile mob that comes after you and will scare skeletons away. You can find wolves, foxes, and rabbits in this diverse biome, but it’s missing one thing that the number one biome has.

What’s Special About the Snowy Taiga

• Igloos

• Wolves

• Villages and pillager outposts

• Snow

• Spruce trees

Snowy Taiga Details

• Temperature: -0.5

• Can have +/- mountains

• All major food mobs present

1. Savanna

Someone at Mojang said to themselves one day how can we take the plains and make them epic, and they came up with the savanna. This biome is reminiscent of the plains but is speckled with acacia trees, and the grass takes on a more brown/orange tint. The savanna has everything you need to thrive in Minecraft: villages, pillager outposts, trees, food mobs, and yes – horses. They also have llamas, which as mentioned before are useful for transporting resources. Often located next to deserts, this is truly a great place to set up your base camp.

Savannas may not have the equivalent of a desert pyramid or a woodland mansion, but their well-rounded nature is what sets them apart from the rest. No matter what game mode you’re playing, the savanna can get you off to a great start.