Overview
Windswept gravelly hills is the variant where the stone slopes are largely replaced with gravel, giving pale grey hillsides streaked with patches of grass and the occasional spruce. That makes it the best place in the Overworld to gather gravel and, through gravel, flint — the ingredient for arrows and for flint and steel, and something players usually end up short of. Gravel drops flint at roughly 10 percent per block by default, but a Fortune III shovel raises that to a guaranteed drop, so a shovel and a hillside here is a stack of flint in a few minutes. Like the other windswept biomes it counts as a mountain biome, so emerald ore generates in the stone beneath. Llamas spawn on windswept hills and their variants, which makes this a place to pick up leashed transport. The hazard specific to the biome is the gravel itself: it obeys gravity, so tunnelling into a gravelly hillside can drop several blocks on your head and, in a deep pocket, suffocate you. Windswept gravelly hills borders windswept hills, windswept forest, taiga, meadow and stony shore.
Gravel and flint in bulk, emerald ore in the mountain distribution below, llamas for leashed transport, and exposed stone faces where ore veins are visible without digging.
Windswept Gravelly Hills is a cold biome that generates in the Overworld. Its base temperature of 0.2 places it in the cold band, which controls whether water freezes, whether it rains or snows, and which passive mobs are allowed to spawn there.
Weather reaches Windswept Gravelly Hills: it rains during storms, so crops grow and cauldrons fill on their own.
One mob names Windswept Gravelly Hills specifically among its spawn biomes: Llama.
Windswept biomes are steep, stony and largely bare, with exposed stone and gravel and scattered spruce. The exposed stone means ore veins are visible from the surface far more often than elsewhere.
How to get it
Windswept gravelly hills generates alongside ordinary windswept hills in cool regions. The grey gravel slopes are recognisable from 200 blocks; expect one within a few hundred blocks of any windswept hills.
Tips
- A Fortune III shovel turns every gravel block into flint, which is the difference between 1 flint and 10 per stack.
- Never tunnel upward into gravel — a falling column will suffocate you inside 2 seconds if you cannot dig out.
- Carry a torch to place under falling gravel: the block breaks instead of stacking, which clears a shaft quickly.
- Llamas spit at you if provoked but never do real damage; tame one by riding it until it stops bucking.
Climate and generation
Windswept Gravelly Hills has a base temperature of 0.2, which puts it in the cold 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 | 0.2 | 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 | #7DA2FF | The colour the game applies to grass, leaves and water in this biome. |
Properties
- Grass and water tint
- #7DA2FF
- Structures generating here
- 0
Mobs in Windswept Gravelly Hills
Llama name Windswept Gravelly Hills 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
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find Windswept Gravelly Hills?
Windswept Gravelly Hills 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 Windswept Gravelly Hills?
Llama spawn here specifically, and the usual Overworld mobs can appear given the right light level.
Does it rain in Windswept Gravelly Hills?
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 Windswept Gravelly Hills.
