Overview
End highlands is the biome the whole End trip is for. It makes up the raised interior of the large outer islands, and it is where chorus plants grow in twisted purple stalks and where end cities generate. An end city is a tower complex of purpur blocks and end stone bricks patrolled by shulkers, and roughly 1 in 3 of them have an end ship moored beside them — the ship is the only place elytra generate, sitting in an item frame in the stern above a chest, with a dragon head on the bowsprit. City chests hold enchanted diamond gear, iron and gold ingots and diamonds. Shulker shells, which the shulkers themselves drop, are the only source of shulker boxes. Chorus fruit harvested from the plants teleports you a short distance when eaten and can be smelted into popped chorus fruit for purpur blocks. Shulkers deal 4 damage and apply Levitation for 10 seconds, which over a void is how most End deaths actually happen. End highlands borders end midlands, and the transition down through midlands to barrens is the standard approach route from a gateway.
Elytra from end ships, shulker shells for shulker boxes, purpur and end stone bricks for building, chorus fruit for a renewable food that teleports, and heavily enchanted diamond gear from city chests.
With a base temperature of 0.5, End Highlands is one of the End's temperate biomes, and that single number decides its weather, its water and much of its wildlife.
End Highlands is in the The End, where there is no weather at all — no rain, no snow, no thunder, and no day-night cycle to go with it.
3 generated structures can appear here, among them End City, End Ship, and End Gateway.
One mob names End Highlands specifically among its spawn biomes: Shulker.
End biomes are floating islands of end stone over the void. The central island holds the dragon and the exit portal; the outer islands, reached by an end gateway, hold end cities, shulkers, chorus fruit and the only elytra in the game.
How to get it
Throw an ender pearl into an end gateway after killing the dragon; it teleports you roughly 1,000 blocks out to the outer islands. Gateways are 5-block obsidian frames that appear around the central island.
Tips
- Kill shulkers by standing so that Levitation carries you onto a roof rather than off a ledge, or bring a bow and shoot from below.
- You need 2 shulker shells per box, so clear a whole city rather than one tower if you want a full set of boxes.
- Breaking a chorus plant block from the bottom collapses the entire plant and drops the fruit, which is far faster than clearing it top-down.
- Take a spare elytra rocket supply: end ships are often 100 blocks above the island and gliding down is the only sane approach.
Climate and generation
End Highlands 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 | No | Nothing falls here, so a cauldron has to be filled by hand. |
| Dimension | The End | Sets which mobs, structures and ores can generate at all. |
| Grass and water tint | #000000 | The colour the game applies to grass, leaves and water in this biome. |
Properties
- Grass and water tint
- #000000
- Structures generating here
- 3
Mobs in End Highlands
Shulker name End Highlands specifically as a spawn biome, so this is where you go to find them.
Structures found here
3 structures can generate in End Highlands: End City, End Ship, and End Gateway.
- End City — A tower complex of purpur blocks and end stone bricks on the outer End islands, reachable only through an end gateway after killing the dragon.
- End Ship — A flying purpur galleon that generates alongside roughly one in four end cities, hovering in the air with no bridge to it, so reaching it means building out or using an ender pearl.
- End Gateway — A small bedrock frame around a magenta beacon of light, created above the central island each time the ender dragon is killed, up to twenty of them.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find End Highlands?
End Highlands generates in the The End. 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 End Highlands?
Shulker spawn here specifically.
Does it rain in End Highlands?
No. Precipitation does not occur here at all.
Related pages
Biomes that generate in the same dimension and, where there are any, in the same climate family as End Highlands.
