Biome



According to Wikipedia, Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems.

In Minecraft, hopefully from the Halloween Update onwards, this means different areas, with different features such as height, temperature, and humidity.

Before the Halloween update, when a map was generated it got a 'theme', e.g. Snowy or Grassy. After this update, a single world will include all themes in a logical fashion.

They’re not final yet, but this is about how they will be in the Halloween update.

Current Savegames
Worlds on current savegames will not be changed. However, any new chunks generated (by the player moving outside of the current world's bounds) will use biomes, just as The Slip will be generated when you enter it first.

Biome Types
There are 11 Biome types: (Note: these names come from Notch's notes, The Slip was renamed to The Nether)


 * Rain Forest
 * Swamp
 * Seasonal Forest
 * Forest
 * Savanna
 * Woods
 * Taiga
 * Desert
 * Grassy Desert
 * Tundra
 * The Nether

Notch
Remaining work on biomes include letting them change the elevation (deserts, plains, tundras and swamps should all be flat), and changing the grass color depending on the biome type. The border between frozen biomes and not frozen ones will get way nicer.

The sky color changes slightly depending on how cold the area you are in is.