One block travelled in the Nether moves you eight blocks in the Overworld. That ratio is the main reason to go there once you have what you need from it, and it makes a Nether tunnel the fastest ground transport in the game. Before you go: wear at least one piece of gold armour so piglins ignore you, and bring Fire Resistance.
Building and linking portals
A portal is a frame of 10 obsidian — 4 wide by 5 tall with the corners omitted — lit with flint and steel. Frames can be built up to 23×23.
You do not need a diamond pickaxe to build one. Casting obsidian in place with lava and a water bucket produces the frame directly, at the cost of some fiddling with the pour order.
The coordinate ratio
Divide your Overworld X and Z by 8 to get the Nether coordinates you want. Multiply Nether coordinates by 8 to get the Overworld position. Y is unchanged.
An Overworld base at X=2400, Z=-1600 corresponds to Nether X=300, Z=-200.
Linking portals reliably
When you step through a portal, the game looks for an existing portal near the corresponding coordinates and creates one if it does not find it. The search radius is generous, which is why two Overworld portals within about 1,024 blocks of each other often end up sharing a single Nether portal.
The fix is to build both ends by hand:
- Note the Overworld coordinates and divide by 8.
- Travel in the Nether to those exact coordinates.
- Build the Nether-side portal there yourself.
- Step through and confirm it takes you to the right Overworld portal.
Do this once per destination and your network stays predictable. Label each portal with a sign or a banner.
The five biomes
| Biome | What is in it | Danger |
|---|---|---|
| Nether Wastes | Ghasts, zombified piglins, magma cubes, quartz | Moderate |
| Crimson Forest | Hoglins, piglins, shroomlight, crimson fungus | Moderate |
| Warped Forest | Endermen only — nothing else spawns | Lowest |
| Soul Sand Valley | Skeletons, ghasts, soul sand, nether fossils | Highest |
| Basalt Deltas | Magma cubes, heavy nether gold ore, terrible visibility | High |
The warped forest is the safest biome in the Nether and a good place to put a portal. The soul sand valley is the most dangerous: open sightlines full of ghasts, dense skeleton spawns, and soul sand that slows you down. Soul Speed boots fix the last of those.
The rules that are different down here
- Water evaporates instantly. No water buckets, no crop hydration, no fall-damage cushion.
- Beds explode. Do not right-click one, except deliberately as a mining charge.
- Compasses and clocks spin uselessly.
- Fire on netherrack burns forever and spreads. Do not start one near your portal.
- The bedrock ceiling is at Y=128 and the lava sea sits at Y=31.
- There is no rain and no daylight cycle, so phantoms do not appear and nothing burns at dawn.
Piglins
Piglins are hostile unless you wear at least one piece of gold armour. Golden boots are the cheapest choice and cost you almost nothing defensively.
Even wearing gold, piglins turn hostile if you:
- Open a chest, barrel or shulker box in their line of sight
- Break a gold block, gilded blackstone or an ore block containing gold
- Attack one — the whole group responds
Piglin brutes attack regardless. They have 50 health, hit for around 13, and guard bastions. Fight them in a corridor with a shield, or avoid them.
Bartering
Right-click a piglin with a gold ingot and it throws an item back after a few seconds. The pool includes ender pearls, obsidian, crying obsidian, string, fire charges, soul sand, glowstone dust, iron nuggets, quartz, gravel, leather, magma cream, spectral arrows and Soul Speed books.
Ender pearls are the reason to barter. Twelve of them, plus blaze powder, makes the eyes of ender you need for the End.
The two structures that matter
Nether fortress
Dark brick corridors and bridges. It is the only place with:
- Blaze spawners — blaze rods for brewing stands and eyes of ender
- Nether wart growing in stairwell gardens — the base of nearly every potion
- Wither skeletons — skulls for the Wither, at 2.5% base drop rate
Fortresses are common. If you cannot find one, tunnel in a straight line at around Y=70 and look for the dark brick against the netherrack.
Bastion remnant
Blackstone fortresses garrisoned by piglins and piglin brutes. They contain gold blocks in quantity, ancient debris in some variants, and — most importantly — the netherite upgrade smithing template, which is guaranteed in a treasure-room chest.
Bastions are the single most dangerous structure in the Nether relative to a mid-game player's gear. Go in with full armour, a shield, and blocks to wall yourself into a corridor.
The kit list
| Item | Why |
|---|---|
| One piece of gold armour | Piglin neutrality |
| Fire Resistance potions | Lava, blazes, ghast fireballs |
| Shield | Reflects almost everything down here |
| 3+ stacks of blocks | Bridging, walling, escaping |
| Bow and arrows | Ghasts hover out of reach |
| Food, 20+ | No regeneration below 18 hunger |
| Spare flint and steel | Relighting a portal a ghast broke |
| Obsidian, 10 | Building an emergency portal home |
| Golden boots with Soul Speed | Soul sand valleys |
The obsidian is the one people forget. A ghast fireball destroying your portal while you are 400 blocks away is a very long walk.
Using the Nether for transport
Because 1 Nether block equals 8 Overworld blocks, a 125-block Nether tunnel covers a kilometre in the Overworld.
- Dig a 2×1 tunnel at a consistent Y, well above the lava sea at Y=31 — around Y=50 to Y=70 works.
- Wall off the sides, or the tunnel becomes a ghast shooting gallery.
- For long routes, lay powered rails or a blue-ice-and-boat highway, which is the fastest transport in the game.
- Light the tunnel so nothing spawns in it, and mark junctions clearly.
Frequently asked questions
Why did my portal take me to the wrong place?
Because the game reuses an existing portal within its search radius rather than creating a new one. Two Overworld portals close together will often share one Nether portal. Build the Nether-side portal manually at the exact divided-by-eight coordinates, then travel through the Overworld side to bind them.
Can I use water in the Nether at all?
Not as a placed block — it evaporates instantly. You can still use a cauldron, which holds water anywhere, and ice blocks melt rather than producing water. This means no fall-damage cushion, no crop hydration, and no putting out fires with a bucket, so Fire Resistance does the job water does elsewhere.
How do I find a nether fortress quickly?
Travel in a straight line at around Y=70, ideally through a soul sand valley where fortresses are especially exposed, and look for the dark nether brick. Building a tunnel and checking side to side every hundred blocks works. There is no in-game locator item for fortresses in survival; a cartographer villager does not sell Nether maps.
Is the Nether roof safe to build on?
The area above the bedrock ceiling at Y=128 is flat and mob-free, which makes it attractive for transport. Getting there requires breaking bedrock, which is not intended behaviour and is disallowed on many servers. It is not required for anything, including ancient debris at Y=15.
What do I do if a ghast destroys my portal?
Relight it with flint and steel if the frame survived. If the frame is gone, build a new one from the 10 obsidian you brought. If you brought neither, find a ruined portal — they are very common in the Nether and usually contain enough obsidian to complete a frame, plus a chest that often has flint and steel or a fire charge in it.
