Overview
Cold ocean is the grey-green ocean that generates between temperate and frozen waters, and it is defined by what it lacks as much as what it holds: no coral, no tropical fish, no dolphins, and a floor of gravel rather than sand. What it does have is salmon in quantity, squid, and the cold variant of ocean ruins — the stone-brick ruins with their own loot tables, which carry buried treasure maps, enchanted books and gold. Kelp grows in cold ocean, which matters because dried kelp blocks are one of the best renewable furnace fuels in the game. Drowned spawn throughout, and a fraction of them carry a trident or a nautilus shell, so a cold ocean is a serviceable trident hunting ground even without the deep variant. The gravel floor is worth noting for a practical reason: gravel is the only source of flint, and an ocean floor gives you an unlimited supply within reach of a shovel. Cold oceans border frozen oceans on one side and ordinary or lukewarm oceans on the other, with rivers and snowy beaches meeting them at the coast.
Salmon for food, kelp for dried kelp blocks as furnace fuel, gravel for flint, cold ocean ruins for treasure maps and enchanted books, and drowned for tridents and nautilus shells.
Cold Ocean is a temperate biome that generates in the Overworld. Its base temperature of 0.5 places it in the temperate band, which controls whether water freezes, whether it rains or snows, and which passive mobs are allowed to spawn there.
Weather reaches Cold Ocean: it rains during storms, so crops grow and cauldrons fill on their own.
2 generated structures can appear here, among them Ocean Ruins and Shipwreck.
4 mobs name Cold Ocean specifically among their spawn biomes: Cod, Dolphin, Drowned, and Salmon.
Ocean biomes vary by temperature: warm oceans carry coral and tropical fish, cold and frozen ones do not. Every ocean can hold a shipwreck, a ruin or buried treasure, and the deep variants are where ocean monuments generate.
How to get it
Cold ocean generates between temperate and frozen ocean bands, typically several thousand blocks from a temperate spawn. A boat covers roughly 8 blocks per second, which is the fastest way to survey one.
Tips
- Brew Water Breathing before diving: a conduit needs 16 frame blocks minimum and you cannot build one until you have the heart of the sea.
- Drowned that spawn holding a trident drop it roughly 8.5% of the time, so hunt them at night near the surface rather than diving.
- A door placed underwater creates an air pocket you can breathe in — cheaper than a potion for a short ruin dive.
- Bring a Respiration helmet and Depth Strider boots; without them you move at about a third of walking speed underwater.
Climate and generation
Cold Ocean has a base temperature of 0.5, which puts it in the temperate band. Temperature is not a thermometer reading — it is the single number that decides snow versus rain, whether water freezes over, and what colour the grass renders.
Above 0.15 water stays liquid and any precipitation falls as rain.
| Property | Value | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Temperature | 0.5 | Decides whether rain falls as snow, whether water freezes, and the grass and foliage tint. |
| Precipitation | Yes | Cauldrons fill on their own and farmland stays hydrated during a storm. |
| Dimension | Overworld | Sets which mobs, structures and ores can generate at all. |
| Grass and water tint | #7BA4FF | The colour the game applies to grass, leaves and water in this biome. |
Properties
- Grass and water tint
- #7BA4FF
- Structures generating here
- 2
Mobs in Cold Ocean
Cod, Dolphin, Drowned, and Salmon name Cold Ocean specifically as a spawn biome, so this is where you go to find them.
On top of those, the mobs that spawn in open terrain anywhere in the Overworld can appear here too, given the right light level. Mobs that only come from a structure or a spawner — breezes from trial chambers, blazes from fortresses, evokers from mansions — are deliberately not in this list.
Also spawns throughout Overworld
Structures found here
2 structures can generate in Cold Ocean: Ocean Ruins and Shipwreck.
- Ocean Ruins — Scattered clusters of sunken buildings, in a sandstone warm-water variant and a stone cold-water variant.
- Shipwreck — A wrecked sailing ship, generated upright, capsized, or broken in two, on the sea floor or beached on the sand.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find Cold Ocean?
Cold Ocean generates in the Overworld. A locate command finds the nearest one instantly; without cheats, exploring in one direction and watching the F3 screen's biome line is the reliable method.
What spawns in Cold Ocean?
Cod, Dolphin, Drowned, and Salmon spawn here specifically, and the usual Overworld mobs can appear given the right light level.
Does it rain in Cold Ocean?
Yes — as rain. Cauldrons fill on their own during a storm and farmland stays hydrated.
Related pages
Biomes that generate in the same dimension and, where there are any, in the same climate family as Cold Ocean.
