Badlands

The Badlands biome, originally called Mesa, is a rare warm biome, featuring mounds of terracotta, coming in various colors. There are six different variants of the badlands biome.

Description
Landlocked Badlands biomes generate with a thin border biome around its perimeter. This border biome is a desert for the standard badlands, plateau, and wooded plateau variants, and Eroded Badlands for the modified plateau variants. No such border generates if the badlands generate next to an ocean.

Badlands biomes feature large mounds of terracotta, in layers of various colors. These mounds rise up from a layer of red sand, and are about 10-15 blocks thick, giving way to typical stone variants below that. Cacti and dead bushes generate frequently across the landscape, similarly to deserts.

Mineshafts generate at much higher elevations in these biomes, often exposed to fresh air. Their supporting planks and fences are made of dark oak rather than oak. Additionally, gold ore generates up to elevation Y=79 (rather than the normal Y=32), and at much higher rates than the rest of the world, making Badlands tunnels excellent sources of gold.

While all Badlands biomes are rich in unique building materials and gold ore, there are no passive mobs, and trees, grass, and water are rare, so food cultivation can be difficult. Trees and grass only appear atop Wooded Badlands Plateaus. Lakes generate infrequently, limiting water sources and making farming potentially troublesome, as with living in a Desert.

Being a dry biome, it never rains, meaning lightning strikes are impossible (although rain still falls and lightning can still strike in any River biomes that cuts through the Badlands). The usual darkening of the sky and hostile mob spawning that accompany thunderstorms still occur during inclement weather.

Terracotta generation
The colors of specific terracotta strata (bands, layers) in these biomes will be the same throughout all Badlands biomes for any particular world. Stratum colors are determined using only the first 48 bits of the 64-bit world seed on Java and Legacy Console editions. The strata repeat every 64 blocks on the Y-axis, and the elevation of a particular stratum can vary through a biome by as much as 4 blocks. Stratum elevations vary with respect to the X-axis only, neglecting the Z-axis. This means, for example, a layer of white terracotta might generate between the lines (X=200, Y=71) and (X=400, Y=72), being the same for all changes in Z. One may note chunk patterns when strata jump one Y-level at a particular X value. Often, the very top layer of stained terracotta is replaced with regular terracotta, most evidenced on plateau tops. Additionally, the topmost layer of underwater terracotta is always orange in color.

In Bedrock Edition, seeds only have 32 bits, so strata will be completely different, even if using the same seed. Terracotta strata are still the same throughout all Badlands biomes in a given world/seed. The elevation of a particular stratum is randomly varied but no more than a few y-layers.

Variants
There are five variations from the regular Badlands biome, for a total of six distinct biomes.

Badlands
The ordinary Badlands biome appears to be a drainage basin, with red sand as a topsoil layer and large mounds of terracotta in various colors. The sand and terracotta give way to stone and ores a few layers down. Cacti and dead bushes dot the sands, and there are occasional ponds here and there.

Badlands Plateau
The Badlands Plateau features large flat-topped hills composed of stratified colors of terracotta. Plateaus have steep edges which rise to within 20-30 blocks above sea level, where they quickly flatten. The top of these plateaus typically have scattered dead bushes. Occasional ponds can appear on plateau tops. The sides of the plateau can occasionally reveal caverns and abandoned mineshafts. River biomes that pass through Badlands Plateaus will cut steep grooves in them, giving the appearance of narrow canyons. These can pose a fall damage hazard if the player is not careful.

Modified Badlands Plateau
The Modified Badlands Plateau features smaller plateaus and somewhat harsher terrain than the Badlands Plateau, mimicking large plateaus that have weathered more over time. Eroded Badlands replace the usual thin Desert border this biome variant would share with other biomes. The Modified Badlands Plateau is the second rarest biome in Minecraft, after Modified Jungle Edge.

Wooded Badlands Plateau
The Wooded Badlands Plateau generates similarly to the regular badlands plateau, but features small groves of trees on its top. The uppermost layers of terrain have large patches of grass and coarse dirt, with oak trees growing on them. Here, the grass and oak leaves take on a dull greenish-brown color, giving it a droughted appearance; additionally, all naturally generated trees will be small variants. This variant is a rare source of wood in the otherwise barren Badlands. The forest begins generating above elevations of roughly Y=82.

Modified Wooded Badlands Plateau
Similar to the Modified Badlands Plateau, the Modified Wooded Badlands Plateau has a weathered appearance and features smaller plateaus with more erratic terrain, allowing for significantly fewer oak trees to grow at the highest layers. Eroded Badlands replace the usual thin Desert border this biome variant would share with other biomes.

Eroded Badlands
The Eroded Badlands features unique formations of terracotta hoodoos, narrow spires that rise up from the red sand floor of the biome's drainage basins. $$, passive mobs can spawn here. This biome is intended to resemble the famous Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA, which features hoodoos across its landscape.

Trivia

 * Regular mineshafts may still generate deep underground in Badlands biomes, and can even intersect the unique Badlands mineshafts, should they generate close enough to one.