Biome



Biomes are regions in a Minecraft world with varying geographical features, flora, heights, temperatures, humidity ratings, and sky and foliage colors. Introduced in the Halloween Update, biomes separate every generated world into different environments, paralleling the real world; examples of biomes include the forest, jungle, desert and tundra. Prior to the Halloween Update, every world had only a single theme, either grassy or snowy.

In the Anvil file format, biomes are stored directly in the world data. This differs from the previous Region file format format, where biomes were dynamically calculated from the seed.

The term biome is analogous to its scientific usage: on Earth, a biome is climatically and geographically defined by distinctive communities of plants, animals and soil organisms supported by similar climatic conditions. They are often referred to as ecosystems.

As of snapshot 13w36a, biomes have a temperature value that determines if it snows, rains, or does not have either. The required values are: <0.15 for snow, 0.15 - 1.5 for rain, or 1.5+ for none. These values can be used to determine the heights that snow generates in different biomes. For example, Extreme Hills biomes generate snow at y=95, as the base value is 0.2, and Savanna biomes do not experience rain or snow due to their heat.

Biome Types
There are 12 main biome types and 7 technical biomes. Main biomes can be distinguished by the grass and leaf colors in the biome, along with the types of blocks present (e.g. types of trees or other plants like cacti, sand coverage in deserts). Biomes are pseudo-randomly generated using the map seed. Technical biomes provide smoother transitions between main biome types, or introduce extra custom features within a main biome, such as rivers, beaches, hills and border areas.

Technical biomes
Technical biomes are found alongside or within their larger counterparts. They are not considered true biomes but they are referred to as biomes in the code and the debug menu. However, these technical biomes serve an important role in the Minecraft world in creating more realistic terrain.

There are seven known technical biomes, although there are less-technical biomes.

Upcoming biomes
As of snapshot 13w36a, there are 8 new biomes, 8 new technical biomes, and 20 variants of old and new biomes, adding up to 36 total biomes that will be added in update 1.7.

Upcoming technical biomes
New technical biomes, which aren't considered "true" biomes, but are still labeled in the F3 menu.

Upcoming biome variants
Rare variants of the biomes, both old and new. Many of these biomes are labeled with M (mountains) and/or F (forests) in the F3 menu.

Biome numbers
Each type of biome, including technical biomes, has its own biome number, shown in the following table. These biome numbers are used when creating a customized superflat world. ''As of snapshot 13w36a, biome variations for most biomes have been added. They seem to have an number of 128 + .''

Items with asterisks(*) next to them are biomes that will be added in 1.7.

Video
A video of the biomes from December 2, 2012.

Biome history


Notch, when he was the lead developer of Minecraft, wanted to add biomes, but he couldn't for a long time. He says the intersection points looked terrible and so, biomes weren't added in the Seecret Updates.

Anvil file format
The Anvil file format allows for biomes to be stored in the world data. In contrast, the Region file format relies on the seed to dynamically calculate biome placement. This would cause biome placement in older worlds to change when the biome generation code was changed. With the current Anvil format, the biome data is stored along with the rest of the world data, meaning it will not change after the world is generated and can be edited by third-party map-editing tools. Furthermore, "edge" biomes allow for biomes to continue extend beyond the edge chunks of an old world. This allows for smooth transitions in world generation after the generation code changes in an update.