Map

A map is an item used to view explored terrain.

In the New Nintendo 3DS Edition, the map is not an item, and is instead always displayed on the Touch Screen.

Natural generation
Maps can also be found in shipwreck chests and cartographer chests in villages.

Inventory
In the Legacy Console Edition, the player spawns with a map in their inventory upon creating a new world. Maps also contain the player's current coordinates at the top. In Bedrock Edition, the player can enable the option to spawn with a map in their hotbar when creating a new world.

Trading
Cartographer villager sell a single empty map for an emerald as their first tier trade. Journeyman-level cartographer villagers have $1/3$ chance to sell a single empty locator map for 5 emerald as tier trades.

Mapping
Crafting a map creates an empty map. The map will be drawn for the first time when it is held and used (with use item). This map can then be adjusted to different zoom levels. After conversion to a drawn map item, it starts to draw a top-down view of the player's surroundings, with North pointing to the top of the map. A pointed oval pointer indicates the player's position on the map, and will move in real time as the player moves across the terrain shown on the map. The map will not center on the player when created, rather, the world is broken up into large invisible grid squares, and the map will display the area of whichever grid square it is in when it is first used. For example, if a player uses a new map in a certain grid square, and then moves a distance away and uses another fresh map but is still within the same grid square, the maps will appear identical. To make a map that is not identical to the first one, the player would have to move outside of the edges of the first map (because then they would be in a new grid square). This way, no two maps will ever partially overlap and every map will only display a fixed area.

To record the world on a map, that specific map item must be held in the player's hands while the player moves around the world. The world will be recorded as-is during exploration, meaning that if the world is modified, a player must revisit the area while holding the map in order to update the map's view. Maps can also be cloned. A map's parameters are fixed when the map is first used, meaning the map does not remain centered on the player—the drawing snaps to a pre-set grid.

Other players will only be displayed on the map if they have a map in their inventory cloned from the one being looked at. When placing a map into an item frame, the map will display with a green pointer shown at the location of the item frame. This is to help the player see where they are in relation to the area that the map is showing. If the player leaves a map in an item frame and views a clone of it, the green pointer will remain in the spot of the framed copy. This can be used to set up waypoints. Unexplored areas are transparent, making the item frame visible.

When the player leaves the area shown on a specific map, the player pointer will transform into a white dot on that map. The marker will shrink to a smaller white dot if the player is very far from the map's center: the radius is 320 blocks per level of zoom. The dot will move along the edge of the map to show the relative location of the player. However in Bedrock Edition, the pointer will remain as an arrow but shrinks until the player is near the area shown in the map.

While maps in the Nether work, all that will be shown is a red and gray pattern. The only useful function is finding where the player is in relation to where the map was made (the center), or have placed framed maps (green pointers). Additionally, the player pointer rapidly spins and is not a good indicator of direction. Placing a banner in the Nether will still show it on the map like normal.

A player can make a large piece of pixel art facing upwards, center a map on it, and place that map in an item frame to create a custom picture.

Maps display as a mini map when held in the off hand, or if the off-hand slot is occupied; the map is full-sized only when held in the dominant hand with both hands free.

Map content
Each pixel of a map corresponds to a variably-sized area of the world, and is always aligned to X and Z coordinates that are multiples of 8. Generally, the color of a map pixel matches the color of the most common opaque block in the corresponding area, as seen from the sky. 'Minority blocks' in the target area have no effect on the color of the pixel, thus small features tend to be undetectable on zoomed-out maps.

Grass, foliage and water colors that are biome-dependent are represented accurately on a map.

Maps will also show ground up to about 15 blocks below the surface of the water in oceans as slightly lighter blue, so you can see where the ground rises. This is not true with land above water. Higher elevations in the world mean lighter colors on the map. The map will record the surface even as you move below the surface.

Maps are 128×128 pixels in size, giving coverage varying from 128×128 to 2048×2048 blocks (8×8 to 128×128 chunks) depending on their zoom factor.

Some relevant distances: 128 blocks (8 chunks) is the update radius from a player in the overworld. However, it is half this (64 blocks) in the End and the Nether. Also, 1024 blocks is the minimum Overworld distance from a Nether Portal, at which you can build another portal and expect to reach a new location in the Nether. This is the distance across a 1:8 map, and also from a 1:16 map's center to its edge.

Player marker and pointer
In the Java and Legacy Console Editions, every map contains a marker that marks the position of the player, and points in the same direction as the player.

In Bedrock Edition, a map can be crafted with or without this marker, and a map without a position marker can add one later by adding a compass to the map. When a map is crafted without a compass, it's simply called an "empty map", but when crafted with a compass, it's called an "empty locator map". The marker will also turn red if you enter the nether with an overworld map and show your overworld location relative to your nether location.

Zoom details
The zoom functions from the time you center the map (zoom level 0) to the largest size (zoom level 4).

Maps are always aligned to a grid at all zoom levels. That means zooming out any map in a specific area covered by that map will always have the same center, regardless of where the map was originally centered. As such maps will be aligned by map width (1024 blocks for a level 3 maps) minus 64. As such a level 3 map generated at spawn will cover X and Z coordinates from -64 to 960. All maps generated in this area will zoom out to the same coordinates, guaranteeing that they are always 'aligned' on a map wall.

For the Legacy Console Edition, Maps are only available in zoom step 3 maps and cannot be zoomed out or in. The map generated at spawn will cover X and Z coordinates from -512 to 512, this is done so that a classic and small sized world uses only one map, a medium sized world using exactly 9 maps (X and/or Z coordinates from ±512 to ±1536), and a large world using exactly 25 maps (X and/or Z coordinates from ±1536 to ±2560).

In the Java Edition, zoom level can be seen on a map by turning on Advanced Tooltips (A Debug screen option which can be toggled by holding F3 and pressing H). The tooltip of the map will then show the zoom level and scaling factor.

Cloning
A mix of empty maps and empty locator maps may be used. Whether the cloned maps show position markers is dependent only on the input map.

The parts of the world that have already been explored and mapped will be copied, and newly explored areas will appear on both instances.

In Creative mode, a map in an item frame may be cloned by using on it, as long as that map is not also in the player's inventory.

Marking points
The player has the ability to mark spots on a map. To do this, a map on a placed-down banner, and the spot of the banner will be marked on the map. The mark will take the color of whatever the base color is for the banner, and if the banner has a name, the mark will show that name. If the banner is destroyed, the mark of the banner will stay at first, but if the player gets closer to where the banner previously was, it will disappear as the area is updated on the map.

Locking
Maps can be locked when using a glass pane in a cartography table, which means a map can no longer be cloned or explored anymore.

Damage values
In Bedrock Edition, an empty map uses the following data values:

Item data

 * : The item's tag tag.

Map icons


It should be noted that even if the player used a NBT editor to add an additional icon on the map, Minecraft will only show the first one listed when the player load up their world.

Trivia

 * Use of the key can allow the player to hold a map without blocking their view at all.
 * The highest possible Map-ID is 32767.
 * If this number is reached, negative Map-IDs are used and can only be updated by reloading the game. When the counter returns to 0, maps will start to be overwritten.
 * A map created using can be any map by using the Map parameter to specify the map number desired. E.g.  will give the specified player map_5. If no data value is supplied it will default to map_0. If map_0 has not ever been crafted, it will be centered on x=0, z=0.
 * The maps are stored separately as their own data file as   with (x) being the map number, see map item format for more info. By manipulating this number, players can organize their maps to suit them, or if they accidentally create a map in the same location, they can delete their extra map so as to save the number they make.
 * Certain programs can be used to make customized maps with images or text on them instead of actual maps, many people use these in adventure maps to show pictures or to tell a story.
 * Since all copies of a map are links to the same file, copying an unfinished map will keep it synchronized with the copy as you fill it in. Thus, a copy stored in a chest can act as a remote backup.