Overview
Frozen ocean is an ocean with a permanent lid. The surface freezes into ice, icebergs of packed ice and blue ice rise out of it, and snow falls instead of rain, which changes the fundamental problem of being in water: you cannot simply swim up to breathe, because there may be several blocks of ice between you and air. Polar bears wander the ice floes and are neutral until you come near a cub, at which point the adult attacks for 6 damage a hit. Below the ice, salmon and cod spawn along with squid and drowned, and there is no kelp, no seagrass to speak of and no coral. The real prize is blue ice, which generates inside the larger icebergs: a boat placed on blue ice reaches roughly 72 blocks per second, which is faster than gliding, so blue ice highways are the standard long-distance transport for players who have not yet found an elytra. Blue ice needs Silk Touch to collect. Frozen ocean borders deep frozen ocean, cold ocean and snowy beaches, and rivers running into it freeze as they cross the line.
Blue ice and packed ice for ice-boat routes and nether highways, polar bears, and drowned for nautilus shells. Ice also makes a fast temporary bridge across open water.
Frozen Ocean is a freezing biome that generates in the Overworld. Its base temperature of 0 places it in the freezing band, which controls whether water freezes, whether it rains or snows, and which passive mobs are allowed to spawn there.
Weather reaches Frozen Ocean: it snows rather than rains, and exposed water freezes into ice.
2 generated structures can appear here, among them Ocean Ruins and Shipwreck.
3 mobs name Frozen Ocean specifically among their spawn biomes: Drowned, Polar Bear, 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
Frozen ocean generates at the cold end of the ocean bands. Icebergs are visible from about 200 blocks in clear weather, and a boat on open water covers roughly 8 blocks per second on the approach.
Tips
- Blue ice and packed ice both need Silk Touch; without it they drop nothing at all and the block is wasted.
- Cut a breathing hole in the ice before you dive, or place a door on the sea floor to make an air pocket.
- Keep 3 blocks between you and a polar bear cub — the adult's aggro range is short but its damage is not.
- Packed ice does not melt near torches, unlike normal ice, so use it for anything decorative indoors.
Climate and generation
Frozen Ocean has a base temperature of 0, which puts it in the freezing 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.
Below 0.15 water freezes into ice on its own and precipitation falls as snow, so a base here needs light on any exposed water.
| Property | Value | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Temperature | 0 | 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 | #7FA1FF | The colour the game applies to grass, leaves and water in this biome. |
Properties
- Grass and water tint
- #7FA1FF
- Structures generating here
- 2
Mobs in Frozen Ocean
Drowned, Polar Bear, and Salmon name Frozen 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 Frozen 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 Frozen Ocean?
Frozen 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 Frozen Ocean?
Drowned, Polar Bear, and Salmon spawn here specifically, and the usual Overworld mobs can appear given the right light level.
Does it rain in Frozen Ocean?
Yes — as snow, because the temperature is below the freezing threshold. 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 Frozen Ocean.
