Overview
End cities are the last real destination in Minecraft, and the only reason most players ever fight the dragon twice. The towers are stuffed with chests carrying diamond gear and enchanted books, but the item that justifies the trip is the Shulker Shell: two shells and a chest make a shulker box, the only container in the game that keeps its contents when you break it, and shulkers exist nowhere else. Fighting them is a positioning problem rather than a damage problem. A shulker fires a homing bullet that gives you Levitation, and Levitation over a purpur bridge means drifting up and then falling past the edge into the void, which is how most End city deaths actually happen. Carry a bow so you can open them at range, stand with a wall behind you, and keep a stack of blocks to seal a doorway and a bucket of water to break a fall — water placed on an End island behaves normally. Slow Falling potions turn the whole hazard into an inconvenience. Loot outward from the tower you arrived at, and never fight with your back to open air.
Shulker shells for shulker boxes, which is the only portable storage in the game, plus diamond swords and chestplates, iron, gold, emeralds, enchanted books and saddles straight from the chests. Purpur and end stone bricks come home by the stack too.
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. Towers connect by bridges and are stacked with loot chests, but every corner hides shulkers that fire levitation bullets and float you off the edge into the void. Bring a bow, blocks, and ideally Slow Falling. End cities are the only source of shulker shells, and therefore of shulker boxes, the game's only portable storage.
It is uncommon in the The End, restricted to End Highlands, and it generates built on the outer End islands, roughly Y=40 upward.
How to get it
End cities generate on the outer End islands in end highlands, roughly Y=40 and upward, and are only reachable after killing the ender dragon and throwing an ender pearl into one of the gateways above the central island. Expect to cross 1,000 blocks or more of void-broken terrain to find the first.
Tips
- Bring a bow. Opening a shulker at range from a doorway is far safer than closing with it on an exposed bridge.
- Carry a water bucket: placed on the island, water cancels the fall damage that Levitation leaves you with.
- Two shulker shells make one shulker box, so plan to clear several towers if you want a full set of them.
- Keep your back to a wall at all times — the bullets track you, and being pushed upward beside the void is the real killer.
Version notes
Added in 1.9 with shulkers, the outer End islands and the elytra. The shulker box recipe followed in 1.11, which is what turned shulker shells from a curiosity into the main reason to come.
Properties
It generates in the End, which has no weather, no day-night cycle and no water, and which you leave by dying or by using the exit portal. In a world with cheats on, /locate structure minecraft:end_city gives the coordinates of the nearest one. Without cheats, an explorer map from a cartographer villager is the reliable route for the structures that have one; everything else is exploration.
- Biomes it generates in
- 1
- Notable loot items
- 10
Where it generates
End City generates in one biome: End Highlands. Outside those it will not generate at all, however far you travel.
Notable loot
Its loot includes Shulker Shell, Diamond, Diamond Sword, Diamond Chestplate, Iron Ingot, Gold Ingot, Emerald, Enchanted Book, Saddle, and Beetroot Seeds. These are the notable entries rather than the full loot table — the common filler (bread, coal, iron nuggets) is omitted, and in some structures the best of it comes from a vault or a spawner rather than a chest.
Mobs found here
Shulker and Enderman generate here. Several of them spawn nowhere else, which is usually the reason to make the trip.
What to watch out for
4 things to prepare for before you go in:
- Shulker levitation dropping you into the void
- No solid ground beneath the bridges
- Endermen aggro from careless looking
- No way home except a gateway or a bed-free respawn
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How many shulker shells do you need for a shulker box?
Two shells and one chest. Shulkers drop one shell at a time with a roughly even chance, so expect to kill several per box.
How do you reach an End city?
Kill the ender dragon, then throw an ender pearl into one of the end gateways that appear above the central island. You arrive on the outer islands, where the cities generate.
Are End cities repeatable?
Each one is looted once, but the outer islands are effectively endless, so there is always another city further out. The gateways deposit you in a slightly different place each time.
How do I find End City?
End City generates in the The End, only in End Highlands, and is uncommon. /locate structure minecraft:end_city finds the nearest one instantly with cheats on.
What loot is in End City?
The notable entries are Shulker Shell, Diamond, Diamond Sword, Diamond Chestplate, Iron Ingot, Gold Ingot and 4 more.
When was End City added?
End City was added in Java Edition 1.9.
Related pages
Structures that share End City's loot, its mobs or its biomes — not simply the next few in the list.
