Log

"I'd estimate that about 95 percent of my Minecraft worlds begin with me collecting a single block of Oak Wood. It's the mother-block – the block from which everything else in the game develops. Without collecting wood, it's almost impossible to play Minecraft. Seriously, try playing Minecraft without wood. It'll be about as much fun as playing blindfolded, or with me screaming "USE WOOD YOU FOOL!" into your ear the entire time."

- Duncan Geere

A log or stem is a naturally occurring block found in trees, primarily used to create planks. It comes in eight types: oak, spruce, birch, jungle, acacia, dark oak, crimson and warped.

A stripped log or stripped stem is a variant obtained by using an axe on a log.

Natural generation

 * Oak
 * Oak logs generate as part of houses in plains villages, and as supporting beams of witch huts.
 * Stripped oak logs generate in plains villages.


 * Spruce
 * Spruce logs generate as part of houses in taiga and snowy villages.
 * Stripped spruce logs generate in snowy tundra villages.


 * Acacia
 * Acacia logs generate as part of houses in savanna villages.
 * Stripped acacia logs generate in savanna villages.


 * Dark Oak
 * Dark oak logs can generate in pillager outposts as a pile of logs, and as part of watchtowers.


 * Mixed
 * Oak, spruce, and dark oak logs generate as masts in shipwrecks.
 * Stripped oak, birch, spruce, acacia, jungle, and dark oak logs generate as masts in shipwrecks.
 * Oak and dark oak logs blocks generate as part of woodland mansions.

Trees
Oak, spruce, birch, jungle, acacia, and dark oak logs generate naturally as part of trees. Trees can also be grown using saplings.

Fungi
Crimson and warped stems generate naturally as part of huge fungi. Huge fungi can also be grown using small fungi.

Stripped logs and stems
an axe on a log or stem turns it into a stripped log or stem, which act the same as regular logs.

Obtaining
Logs and stems can be broken by hand, but using an axe speeds up the process.

Further crafting
The following table presents the amount of logs or stems needed to produce an even multiple of a given item with no waste left over, and the quantity produced:

Fuel
Logs and stems can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1.5 items per block. It is far more efficient to craft each log into four wood planks: each plank burns as long as the log would have, for a total of 6 items.

Smelting log into charcoal is slightly better: each charcoal smelts 8 items, but the charcoal itself needs to be smelted. The net items smelted therefore is 7. Also, the increased need to load and unload items usually result in some loss of smelting time.

Even more efficiently one can craft wooden slabs, which each smelt 1.5 items like a plank instead of 0.75 on Java Edition. Since three wood logs can craft into twenty-four slabs, this means 12 items can be processed per log.

Data values
$$, oak, spruce, birch, and jungle log and wood have the ID name  and are further defined by their block data or block state. Acacia and dark oak log and wood blocks have the ID name  and are further defined by their block data or block state.

Note that when a log is placed, it changes its facing parameters, placing in the direction relative to the block it is placed on.

Logs consider only the axis; a sideways log placed while facing north does not have a top texture rotated 180 degrees from a log placed south.

ID
Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Block data
In Bedrock Edition, log uses the following data values:


 * Log


 * Log 2


 * Stripped Log

Trivia

 * Dark oak and acacia logs previously shared or currently do share a block ID separate from the old logs, called log2, because all the other data values on the previous log block were occupied by rotated variants (red sandstone slabs suffered a similar fate). There are still 8 remaining data values on the block that cannot be obtained.