Village

A village is a group or complex of buildings and other structures that generate naturally in the Overworld. A village is inhabited by villagers, as people, cats, as pets, iron golems, for defense, passive livestock mobs, for farms, occasional zombie villagers, and wandering traders with their trader llamas. A village is a source of resources to the player, obtained from trading, loot chests, and other materials found in the village. Villages are also a target of raid attacks by illagers when a player walks into a village with the Bad Omen effect.

Generation
Villages generate naturally in plains, savanna, taiga, meadows, snowy plains, and desert biomes. $$, they also generate in snowy taiga and sunflower plains biomes. The type of the village, and therefore the style of all structures within it, is determined by the biome at the village center or meeting point. The buildings and wood depend on the biome the village is in. If the meeting point does not generate in one of the above biomes, the village defaults to plains style.

The following table shows the village styles corresponding to different biomes.

The number of villagers spawned depends on the number of beds in the village. Villagers spawn only in houses that have beds, while job site buildings (with no beds) always generate without villagers.

If a building or pathway generates over open-air, circular or square platforms of grass or sand (depending on the terrain) generates below the structure, which can cause surface oddities. These platforms do not generate beside cliffs or over the void; rather, they generate on the lowest blocks. Platforms can be clearly seen when a village building generates over an ocean. Farms generate a few blocks of open space above them if they happen to generate inside a hill. Village buildings can also generate suddenly on the top of a windswept hills while the other buildings are at the bottom of the windswept hills. This happens often in savanna villages.

Some villages generate as abandoned; see below.

Villages are slightly more common in Bedrock Edition than in Java Edition. There is a roughly $1/2$ chance that at least one village is present within 500 blocks of the world spawn point in Java Edition, while this chance is about $2/3$ in Bedrock Edition. This is due to the fact that villages can generate in more biomes in Bedrock Edition, as well as being closer to each other within an eligible biome.

Despite the existence of jungle and swamp villagers, there are no swamp or jungle villages in the game.


 * Upon generation


 * Villagers spawn in regular villages only.
 * Iron golems spawn in regular villages only, one spawns near a village meeting point.
 * Zombie villagers spawn in abandoned villages only.
 * Horses, pigs, cows, and sheep spawn in regular villages and abandoned villages.
 * Camels spawn in regular desert villages and abandoned desert villages.


 * Periodically


 * Cats spawn naturally inside villages, one for every four beds for a maximum of five.
 * One wandering trader spawns periodically at a village meeting point.
 * Two trader llamas spawn periodically at a village meeting point alongside a wandering trader.
 * $$, iron golems spawn periodically around the village center if there are at least 10 villagers and 20 beds in a village, for a maximum of two. $$, they are summoned by a Villager if the villager spawning them has slept.


 * During events
 * Zombies spawn during zombie sieges. Chicken jockeys spawn rarely during zombie sieges.
 * Pillagers, vindicators, evokers, vexes, ravagers, and witches spawn during raids.
 * Witches also spawn when a villager is struck by lightning within four blocks of the bolt.

Raids
A player who kills an illager captain (found in an outpost or a patrol) receives the Bad Omen effect for 100 minutes. Like other status effects, Bad Omen can also be cleared by dying or drinking milk. Entering a village boundary while the effect is active triggers a raid, in which groups of illagers spawn and attack the village. Killing multiple captains in Java Edition gives the player a higher level of Bad Omen, and the higher the level, the higher the chance for the raiding mobs to wield enchanted weapons.

Zombie sieges
Zombie sieges are in-game events where many zombies spawn in a village, regardless of how well lit or walled off a village is. They have a 10% chance of occurring at midnight every night or during thunderstorms when a village has at least 20 valid beds. There is no indication of a zombie siege happening except for an unusually high number of zombies.

Buildings
The number of buildings making up a village can vary, and not every village consists of all building types at once. Apart from the meeting point, which is unique and systematic, the number of buildings of each type is randomly generated and increased in superflat worlds. More than one meeting point can generate in superflat worlds. The number of lamp posts and decorative structures (hay bales, melon patch, pumpkin patch, farms, snow and ice patches) has no restriction, as they are generated where no other buildings can be placed. These structures could have functions, and could be of great use to the player. Paths are found between the buildings of the village and often extend beyond them.

Structures are chosen randomly from a pool of possible buildings. No one building has a greater chance to appear than another.

The full list of the village house blueprints can be accessed by going here.

Architecture style, and blocks making up the village structures, vary according to village type. Not every building can generate in a single village, although some blocks can be found in any village, such as job site blocks and food items. Buildings have different probabilities of generating, depending on village type; for example, a weaponsmith shop is more likely to appear in a Taiga village than other villages.

$$, villages don't generate with expected structures; for example, a fletcher house doesn't appear in a plains village and a stone mason house doesn't appear in a savanna village.

Paths


Villages generate paths between the buildings and extending outside of the village. Village paths generate at the level of existing terrain, potentially going up steep hills or down ravines without regard for whether an entity could actually traverse the path. Paths do not go below sea level and replace only grass blocks (with air above), water, lava, sand, sandstone, and red sandstone; all other blocks are ignored and the blocks underneath are considered for replacement instead. Villagers use these paths to travel across the village.

In plains, savanna, taiga, and snowy villages, paths are comprised of dirt paths and grass. Savanna villages also generate farmland and crops in some paths. Dirt paths that generate over water are replaced by the village style's planks type. Desert villages generate with smooth sandstone paths.

In Buffet worlds with cave generation, paths may generate on a separate layer from the rest of the buildings. In floating island generation, paths may not generate at all.

Trees, lamp posts, and other decorative structures can generate in the middle of paths as obstructions.

Abandoned villages


A village has a 2% chance of generating as an abandoned village (also known as zombie village). In an abandoned village, all generated villagers are instead zombie villagers, and all doors and torches are missing. The zombie villagers do not despawn, but have no resistance to sunlight. The zombie villagers spawned inside these villages behave similar to drowned as they stay in the shade even when a player or villager are nearby, only coming out when the sun has set. In abandoned villages, most cobblestone blocks are replaced by mossy cobblestone, random blocks (particularly wood) are replaced by cobwebs, and all glass panes are replaced by brown stained glass panes to represent dirty glass. Abandoned villages also spawn stray cats, as well as the usual village livestock, but they do not spawn iron golems. The amount of buildings in an abandoned village can be slightly more than a normal village.

Java Edition
A subchunk is a "village center" if it contains at least one claimed bed, bell, or job site block. The 26 subchunks in a 3×3×3 cube around such a subchunk are also considered part of a village.

Villages as a whole have no defined "center", "size", or "radius", it's all based on closeness to any "village center" subchunk.

Bedrock Edition
A village always consists of at least one acceptable bed and one villager. Rarely, a village structure can generate without beds, thus not qualifying as a village. Upon creation, a village center is defined as a bed claimed by the first villager (a village leader), or the gathering site block (a bell), and the village's size is the greater of 32 blocks or the distance to the furthest bed from the center. Any villager, village golem, siege-spawned zombie, or raid-spawned Illagers can pathfind back into the village if they find themselves farther than that many blocks from the center.

Villages are established by the number of valid beds in the village.

The maximum population of a village is the number of valid beds. If the population drops below that point (due to death or removal), but there are at least two villagers left who can reach each other, the villagers mate and breed until the population is at the maximum.

$$, a village is created when at least one villager links to one bed. The village continues to exist as long as one of its villagers remains linked to one of its beds. If all beds are unlinked (by being destroyed, by players sleeping in them, or by villagers failing to pathfind to them), then the village ceases to exist. When this happens the villagers lose all links to job site blocks and bells, and cannot use them.

When the first villager links to a bed a village of size 65×25×65 blocks is created, centered on the pillow of that bed. The boundaries, and consequently the center (which is important because it defines where cats and iron golems can spawn), may change as other villagers link or unlink from point of interest (POI) blocks. When the boundaries change the center usually shifts to the location of POI block near the midpoint between the farthest out POI in each direction. In naturally generated villages there is usually a bell near the village center, but aside from that bells have no special role distinct from other POI in how the game defines and manages the village center and boundaries.

Gathering site
Villages have gathering sites where villagers may mingle. A gathering site is defined as a bell located within the village boundary. A wandering trader may spawn at a gathering site, accompanied by trader llamas. A villager will also ring the bell when a raid starts.

Job site blocks
Job site blocks are blocks such as grindstones, smithing tables, and lecterns, which are used by villagers. Villagers with the corresponding professions spend their time in front of their job site block, except for nitwits, baby villagers and unemployed villagers (villagers without profession overlays). Upon claiming a job site block, green particles appear above both the villager and the job site block, and the villager takes up the profession of the job site block if unemployed. Villagers that have already been traded with can claim only job site blocks related to their profession. Employed villagers that are not linked to a job site block are unable to restock their trades. Villagers cannot link to a job site block that has already been claimed by another villager. There are thirteen job site blocks in the game, each linking to their respective villager profession.

Trivia



 * According to Jeb, originally they wanted a system for a village to expand in population if the player improves it. But they found that it was computationally expensive to evaluate what constituted a house, so to make it simple, they decided that a door with an inside and outside counts as a house; however, the house was later changed to beds.
 * Prior to Village and Pillage, the farms in villages would avoid overhanging by filling in the area below them with dirt when they spawned. When a farm overhangs a ravine, a tall rectangular dirt structure generates underneath. Buildings would fill the area below them with cobblestone, often resulting in the same behavior.
 * Occasionally, surface ravines generate through villages, causing missing pathways or even entire buildings sunken into the ravine. This also applies to cave entrances and other surface oddities.
 * In rare cases, players can find a tiny village consisting of one house, or even just one job site-building (a building with job site blocks) without any houses (building with beds), causing the village to not spawn any villagers.
 * The plains village is the only type of village with much of its architecture resembling its old counterpart prior to Village & Pillage.
 * $$, village paths generated as dirt paths only on grass blocks and used gravel in other cases. This is no longer the case due to a bug.
 * Because of the relatively large amount of biomes, a village house designed for one a particular biome might be located on the border of two biomes.