Overview
Wooded badlands is the badlands variant with a green top: the same banded terracotta cliffs and red sand below, but with the plateau surfaces covered in coarse dirt, grass and stands of oak trees. That changes what the biome is for, because the plateau top supports the things a plain badlands cannot — passive animals spawn on the grass, trees give you wood on site, and a farm will grow there, which makes wooded badlands a far more practical place to base yourself while you strip the gold out of the cliffs. And the gold is the point: badlands biomes run their own gold distribution that generates ore from about Y 32 up to Y 256, in the open, so you mine it out of the cliff faces with an iron pickaxe and never dig a shaft. Abandoned mineshafts generate near the surface here as in every badlands, often with their rails hanging in open air. Coarse dirt on the plateau is worth taking — it never grows grass, which makes it useful for paths, and it is otherwise crafted from dirt and gravel. It borders badlands, eroded badlands, desert and savanna.
Surface gold ore in quantity, terracotta in 6 natural colours, coarse dirt for paths, oak wood and grazing animals on the plateau, and exposed mineshafts with chest minecarts.
Wooded Badlands sits in the hot band of Minecraft's biome table, generating in the Overworld at a base temperature of 2.
No precipitation falls in Wooded Badlands. It never rains or snows here, so cauldrons stay empty and lightning does not strike.
One generated structure can appear here, among them Fossil.
One mob names Wooded Badlands specifically among its spawn biomes: Armadillo.
Badlands are the only biome where gold ore generates near the surface rather than at depth, which makes them worth a trip on their own. Terracotta in a dozen natural colours and no grass to speak of make them unmistakable from a distance.
How to get it
Wooded badlands generates on the raised plateaus of a badlands region and is usually the first badlands variant you meet from above. Gold ore is exposed in the cliffs from roughly Y 32 to Y 256.
Tips
- Mine the gold veins visible in the cliff faces first — badlands gold needs no tunnel and only an iron pickaxe.
- Coarse dirt never grows grass, which makes it the tidiest path block in the game; a hoe turns it back into dirt.
- Base on the plateau top rather than the canyon floor: you get grass, trees and animals with the gold cliffs below.
- Terracotta takes roughly twice as long to mine as sandstone, so bring an Efficiency pickaxe if you want it in bulk.
Climate and generation
Wooded Badlands has a base temperature of 2, which puts it in the hot 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 | 2 | 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 | Overworld | Sets which mobs, structures and ores can generate at all. |
| Grass and water tint | #6EB1FF | The colour the game applies to grass, leaves and water in this biome. |
Properties
- Grass and water tint
- #6EB1FF
- Structures generating here
- 1
Mobs in Wooded Badlands
Armadillo name Wooded Badlands 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
One structure can generate in Wooded Badlands: Fossil.
- Fossil — A buried skeleton of bone blocks shaped like a spine, rib cage or skull, occasionally with coal ore mixed in.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find Wooded Badlands?
Wooded Badlands 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 Wooded Badlands?
Armadillo spawn here specifically, and the usual Overworld mobs can appear given the right light level.
Does it rain in Wooded Badlands?
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 Wooded Badlands.
