Dimension

Introduction
This article coves the 5 dimensions that I regard as dimensions.

These dimensions are:
 * The Overworld
 * The Nether
 * The End
 * The Void
 * The Far Lands

Additional Data

 * The Nether, and the End are the 2 dimensions which can only be accessed via portal. The Nether portal is upright, while the End portal is horizontal.
 * The Overworld, The Nether, The End, The Void, and the Far Lands all have this in common: Bedrock can be found naturally.
 * The Far Lands are no longer in Minecraft as of 1.8 Adventure Update, but still regarded as a dimension.

Overworld
The Overworld is the starting dimension in Minecraft. As with all dimensions in the game, the Overworld can generate infinitely on the horizontal plane (except on the Xbox 360 Edition, where terrain generation is limited to 862 by 862 blocks, and the Pocket Edition, where terrain generation is limied to 256 by 256 blocks).

The Overworld encompasses the level ceiling down to bedrock and extending in every direction on the horizontal plane. It is generated through a secret process which creates multiple Noise maps to create differing elevations, general chunk shapes, and complex mountain and cave systems.

All but six of the mobs in the game can appear in the Overworld: Wolves, Bats, Pigs, Sheep, Cows, Mooshrooms, Chickens, Squid, Zombies, Ocelots, Skeletons, Spiders, Spider Jockeys, Endermen, Creepers and Slimes all spawn normally, and Pigs can, very rarely, be hit by lightning, which turns them into Zombie Pigmen. Zombie pigmen can also spawn near nether portals. Also, if Creepers get hit by lightning, they can turn into Charged Creepers, though this happens very rarely.

Seeds
Worlds in Minecraft are generated through a procedural formula that takes a random number as a starting point - a seed, and it will be used to generate all the terrain of the overworld (and the Nether).

Using a specific seed generates exactly the same world each time, and thus interesting Minecraft worlds could be shared between players. The spawn is not on exactly the same spot, though, so it is wise to give coordinates instead of directions. The seed input is converted into an integer, so, for instance, the word 'Glacier' corresponds to a value of 1772835215, which generates exactly the same world when entered as a seed value.

Many seeds are chosen simply because they spawn the player near desirable resources, a stronghold or some certain special structure, such as a dungeon. Players often like to find seeds with other very important generated structures such as Abandoned Mine Shafts (possibly for the melon seeds and cobwebs) and NPC Villages (perhaps for a surplus of wheat, potatoes or carrots).

Players could find the current map seed by pressing or by entering the /seed command.

Sizes
In Classic and Indev, maps can be generated in "small" (128×128×64), "normal" (256×256×64), and "huge" (512×512×64) sizes.

In Infdev, Alpha and Beta maps are somewhat infinitely big - They are made up of chunks; this means that as the player explores the map distant chunks are generated automatically, leading to theoretically infinite maps. In practice, technical reasons (the limits of 32-bit math ) force the maximum map size, including the Far Lands, to be around 9.3 million times the surface area of Earth, which comes out to about 4.7 quadrillion km2 (The hard limit where chunks are overwritten is at X/Z of ±34,359,738,368, making the world at most 68,719,476,736 meters wide and long, which is about 4,722,366,482,869,645 km2. When compared to Earth's total surface area, 510,072,000 km2, this works out to be about 9,258,235 times that). Whilst the horizontal planes of the maps are vast in size, the vertical plane remains at a fixed (soft limit) 256-block height.

Map limitation


While the map is infinite, the number of blocks the player may walk on is limited. The map, counting air as a block, and not counting blocks beyond and at where block physics fail (32,000,000 from the center) from top to bottom, and all in between, is essentially always 2.62144 × 1017 blocks big. The last point a person may still play normally and not fall into the void, which in layman terms the very edge of the map as of 1.2.5 is X/Z: 30,000,000.

Beyond this edge, world generation is significantly simpler. It is interesting to note that if a person installs an x-ray mod, texture pack or just flies through with Creative Mode, he or she will notice that any chunk after the edge consists of just dirt, sand and stone with absolutely no vegetation. Caves do generate here, but no ores or structures appear inside, and the lighting in some of these caves may appear to make them look brighter with more contrast. If a person reaches it normally, be sure to notice that the sea floor of the chunks after the edge consists of only dirt. Making it stand out, another point to note is that if a person stands on the very border of the edge the ocean will look empty and 'seemingly' be able to see as though there was no water.

Generated blocks
Entries marked with a D require additional data to fully define the block in a Beta world. Entries marked with an I have a different ID as an inventory item. Entries marked with a B require additional inventory data to fully define the inventory item. Entries marked with a T have tile entities associated with them to store additional data. Blocks with IDs in red cannot be legitimately obtained in the player's inventory in the game; they can only be obtained by "hacking" (such as the use of Inventory editors) or, in multiplayer using the /give server command. Blocks available only in Creative mode are in blue, and blocks available in Survival mode only with the use of a Silk Touch-enchanted tool are in green.

Naturally generated
Naturally Generated includes blocks that are created through the world seed.

Naturally created
Naturally created means a combination of events that cause a new block to be placed by natural causes, not the player. Some of these blocks may also be created as part of world generation.

Structures
Same as naturally generated, but these blocks are only created with the "Generate Structures" option enabled.

Chunks
Chunks are the method used by Notch to divide maps into manageable pieces. They are 16 blocks wide, 16 blocks long, and 256 blocks deep, and encompass 65,536 blocks. By adjusting the render distance, differing numbers of chunks will be loaded into memory, with "far" rendering the maximum of 81 chunks. Only chunks which have been loaded may experience activity such as spawning, despawning, growth, fluid movement, or player interaction. Upon reaching the required distance away from a chunk, it will be unloaded from the memory, however not deleted. Thus, upon re-entering that area, whatever has been changed will remain changed.

Biomes
The Overworld is also subdivided into biomes. What biome you are in determines the physical aspects of the land above ground and can entirely change its appearance. It also influences which mobs may spawn and affects the behavior of the weather. Biomes may have varying sizes, and each has its own features. For example, a forest biome will have large quantities of trees, and a snow biome will have much snow and ice.

Natural structures
The Overworld is able to seamlessly create new areas by using patterns found in the surrounding chunks and extend those into the newly created chunk. These patterns, while unique to each world, can be categorized easily by comparing them to a real-world equivalent, such as cliffs or oceans. While Minecraft is based on landforms found on earth, impossible formations, such as floating islands, can be found throughout the Overworld.

Navigating the Overworld
The Overworld can be navigated by use of the position of the sun and the moon, the movement of the clouds, and the movement of the stars. Assuming that the sun and moon rise in the east and go west, the clouds can be observed moving west and stars east (not since 1.0.0, see below.)

Tools used for Navigating The Overworld include the Compass and Map. The Compass points to the original spawn point (sleeping in a bed does not change the compass operation), and the Map displays a fixed area around where it was made, and shows you the area very generically. In the Nether, the Compass needle will spin wildly, and thus is useless. The Compass needle and the Clock will spin randomly within The End, similar to the Nether.

The key toggles a debug console which shows the player their absolute coordinates, where the X and Z coordinates show longitude and latitude, and the Y coordinate shows height, where Y=64 corresponds to sea level. The 'f' value indicates the direction the player is facing, 0 being the direction in which the sun sets, and it goes counter clockwise from there: 1 being the direction in which the clouds move, 2 and 3 are opposite to 0 and 1 respectively.

Since the sun changed position relative to the clouds (they now move in the same direction) in 1.0.0, if you want to assume that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the 'f' values are: 1=west, 2=north, 3=east, and 0=south.

Day and night
The Overworld is the only dimension with a day/night cycle. During the daytime, the sun acts as a light source. This light is strong enough to kill Zombies, and Skeletons, make Endermen teleport away from the player and also makes Spiders neutral. The only mobs that survive and stay hostile in the daylight are creepers and slimes. At night time the moon is the only natural light source however it provides only a little light, allowing hostile mobs to spawn.

Far Lands
The Far Lands used to be an area that formed the "edge" of the "infinite" map, but was later removed accidentally from a patch on Beta 1.8 due to the change in the terrain generation code. When players made it to the Far Lands, they experienced an excessive amount of lag and the world became severely distorted.

According to Notch, this distortion could be fixed, but since no one was likely to make it to the Far Lands without some form of cheating, he says that he was likely not going to fix it since he liked the idea of a mysterious world beyond a certain distance.

Since Beta 1.8, instead of a distorted land, there is a seemingly endless ocean. Normal terrain only starts to generate beyond the actual edges of the world, but block physics do not work at that point and anyone who enters will fall into the Void, unless they are in Creative Mode in which case they can fly through the illusionary terrain.

Trivia

 * There is a bug that sometimes causes the files for deleted worlds to not be deleted from your hard drive. If a new world is created with the same name, this can cause the game to reuse the old files, and thus, parts of the old map, rather than generate an entirely new map. On Windows, this can be replicated by having the saves folder in .minecraft open when you delete the save in game.
 * If someone made a 1:1 (1 block = 1 meter) scale version of the Earth, the map alone would be 5,630 GB. (6.0452e+12 B, 5,903,482,880 KB, 5,765,120 MB, 5.49804688 TB, 0.00536919 PB, 0.00000524 EB.)

The Nether


The Nether, also referred to as "the Nexus" in Notch's blog and previously known as Hell and the Slip, is a hellish dimension accessible by entering a Nether Portal only from the Overworld.

The Nether can be used for travelling large distances on the above ground map quickly. The Nether also contains block types not seen anywhere else, as well as supplies of block types found in the Overworld, predominantly mushrooms, gravel and lava. The Nether is home to five mobs: Ghasts, Magma Cubes, Blazes, Wither Skeletons and Zombie Pigmen. All of these mobs are only found in the Nether with the exception of Zombie Pigmen which spawn in the Overworld when a pig is struck by lightning (and, as of Snapshot 12w22a, Zombie Pigmen have a small chance of spawning near Nether Portals in the Overworld).

The Nether functions as a second map in a player's world. When it is entered, the chunks from the above ground map are unloaded and the Nether chunks begin to load. Terrain generates infinitely in the Nether just like in the Overworld. If the player dies in the Nether, their items will stay there while the player respawns in the Overworld, assuming that they do not land in either fire or lava, and burn.

Terrain


Its terrain is largely composed of Netherrack, which is arranged into large, smooth outcroppings and niches; it is essentially a cave. There are patches of gravel and soul sand, as well as stalactites of glowstone hanging from the ceiling. Mushrooms grow abundantly in the Nether, and natural fires are a common sight. Small tunnels form in the netherrack, which contain no ores or hidden caverns. Nether fortresses can be found as well. These Nether fortresses are made up of Nether brick, Nether brick stairs, Nether brick fences and crops of Nether wart. At the very bottom, beneath an ocean of lava, is a layer of Netherrack and bedrock. The very top of the Nether is also bedrock.

Navigating the Nether can be very dangerous. The strange, dimly lit landscape conceals pits and sudden cliffs. Many lava streams flow from the ceilings, down the Netherrack and into a lava ocean. If one dies near this lava or a patch of fire, it is a safe assumption that some of one's items will fall in and be burned.

The sky and fog in the Nether are dull dark red. Thunderstorms can cause the shade to flicker quickly - a known bug.

In the Xbox 360 edition, world sizes are currently limited to 862x862 blocks. In the Overworld, the edge of a map generates an ocean and (mostly) smooth shores, whereas in the Nether this limit is formed by a wall of bedrock that abruptly cuts off the terrain. These bedrock walls aren't smooth at all, as they seem to be generated in the same way as the bedrock located at the bottom layers of a map.

Environment
The Nether has no day/night cycle and no weather. The only natural sources of light are fire, lava, and glowstone. A dim ambient light can be seen throughout the Nether, but this is purely a visual effect and does not affect game mechanics. Contrary to some common myths, light works the same way in the Nether as it does in the Overworld: there are 16 levels of brightness and one level falls off for every transparent block it radiates through.

The Nether does have one special property relating to light: plants that usually require it, such as flowers and Nether wart, can survive in complete darkness when planted in the Nether. However, due to a bug, this doesn't work below natural veins of glowstone or below lava source blocks that appear naturally in cave walls. Plants at any level below these formations, even if separated by other terrain, will uproot if not adequately lit.

Blocks and structures
Entries marked with a D require additional data to fully define the block in a Beta world. Entries marked with a T have tile entities associated with them to store additional data. Items with IDs in red cannot be legitimately obtained in the player's inventory in the game; they can only be obtained by the use of inventory editors or in multi player using the /give server command. Items available only in Creative mode are in blue.

Naturally generated
Naturally Generated includes blocks that are created through the world seed.

Naturally created
Naturally Created means a combination of events that cause a new block to be placed by natural causes, not the player.

Structures
These blocks are generated as part of Nether fortresses. Even if the "Generate Structures" option is turned off, Nether fortresses are still created.

Nether-affected materials
When grass blocks are obtained using a tool, such as a shovel, with the "Silk Touch" enchantment and taken into the Nether, it becomes possible to have grass in the nether.

There is no way to place water in the Nether in a Survival game. Using water buckets will produce steam and an empty bucket. This makes growing sugar cane impossible since the plant requires water to survive. Wheat farms are also affected by this. They can survive without water, although they will grow much more slowly. As of 1.2.5, broken or melted ice blocks will produce water, but ice cannot be obtained normally. As of snapshot 12w17a, ice can be obtained using Silk Touch, but will no longer produce water when broken or melted in the Nether. Water blocks edited into a player's inventory can be placed and will still produce water. However, when using mods, water can be placed in the Nether by using the water tile. The water tile cannot normally be accessed, even in creative mode.

Trees grow normally, and their leaves take a dead-looking brownish color like in desert biomes. Trees are hard to keep in the Nether because of the substantial amount of lava, which ignites them.

It is always a good idea to bring paper down into the Nether and then craft a map, as getting lost is easy and happens frequently. Note that only the player's location is seen on the map, not the actual scenery, since the player is inside a massive cavern. Also, direction indicators rapidly spin and is not a good indicator of direction, this function is only useful for which parts of the Nether that have been explored. Compasses and clocks can be brought in freely or crafted in the Nether, but they will not work correctly. As the Nether is in a totally different dimension from the Overworld, compasses will be unable to find the original spawn point, and clocks cannot determine the position of the sun or the moon. Their arrows and dials will instead spin and flail madly. Maps made on the above ground dimension and The End will not show the player's position in the other dimension. For maps to display the Nether, they must be crafted there. Beds will explode when a player attempts to sleep in one. This can be a useful strategy to quickly mine materials in the Nether, but only if the difficulty is set to peaceful.

Lava flows twice as far in the Nether as it does in the Overworld (generally 8 blocks, instead of 4 blocks). Building Snow Golems will only cause them to melt. This is due to the Nether having a very high temperature. However, they can survive in fortresses.

Mobs
The Nether is home to its own share of mobs. Nether mobs are completely fire-proof and can often be seen wandering into lava, where it will take them a while to get out due to the slowdown it causes on movement.


 * , huge jellyfish-like creatures, will lazily hover around. They are 4×4×4 blocks large, and have 9 tentacles hanging from them. If they spot the player, they will shoot fireballs at them, which can be deflected by shooting arrows at them, punching them or hitting them with any tool. The reflected fireballs will instantly kill the Ghast, if it is hit. These will explode and often leave craters, if the blast-site is weak enough. They make screeching and whimpering noises, something like a purring kitten or an angry baby (actually taken from C418's cat), and can be heard for great distances. Also, they can be killed by firing 2 arrows and hitting the Ghast. If killed, they drop gunpowder and/or a ghast tear, which is used in potions.


 * spawn in groups and wander aimlessly. They will not harm the player unless attacked. If they are, all the Pigmen within a 32 block radius rush the player, often causing ambushes from behind as the player attempts to attack while fleeing. If killed, they drop rotten flesh and sometimes a gold nugget, and even more rarely a golden sword that sometimes has a low enchantment, such as knockback I or even sharpness II, sometimes both. Other golden enchantments may also drop, like a helmet.


 * are found in Nether fortresses and are primarily spawned through monster spawners found inside the fortresses. They are able to float and shoot 3 fireballs at the player in a quick succession. They appear to catch fire just before shooting fireballs, then "cool down" until they can shoot again. If killed, they drop Blaze rods.


 * are spring-like mobs that look and behave similar to Slimes that slowly hop towards the player. If killed, they split into 2-3 smaller versions of the original one. Magma Cubes are occasionally rare. If killed, they drop magma cream, which is used to make a potion.


 * are the Nether equivalent of Skeletons and spawn in Nether fortresses. Unlike skeletons, however, Wither Skeletons use stone swords and are over two blocks tall. When hit by a Wither Skeleton, the player may be inflicted with the "Wither" effect for a few seconds, darkening the health bar and further damaging the player. When killed, the mob may drop coal and bones, and very rarely drop their skull and the stone sword. The skulls are the key items to creating the Wither boss.


 * rarely spawn in Nether Fortress's as of 12w36a.

Overworld mobs like pigs and zombies do not randomly spawn in the Nether, but throwing chicken eggs and constructing golems works as normal (however, Snow Golems will die from the heat). Creative mode spawn eggs work normally in the Nether.


 * As of 12w32a, Villagers can spawn in the Nether near portals.

Portals and fast travel


Nether portals are made by creating a 4x5 (2x3 on inside) door frame out of obsidian and then lighting the inside of the frame on fire with flint and steel or a fire charge. When the player stands inside the portal for the first time, it will create a portal in its equivalent area of The Nether. A loading screen will appear during the change of worlds.

If the player creates a portal in the Nether and re-enter the normal world, any distance covered in The Nether is multiplied by 8, effectively making The Nether a fast travel zone that allows for greater distances to be covered in a short amount of time in the normal world (in the Xbox 360 edition, this factor is 3 instead of 8, probably because of the world size limit). Linking a network of portals between the Nether and the Overworld can be tricky though. See the Nether portal page for the precise details of how this can be done. This also means that building a new portal in the Nether and entering can cause unprepared players to become totally lost due to the distances traveled.

Due to Ghasts, it is recommended that players enclose their portals with a blast-resistant material (cobblestone is cheap and effective). This will prevent Ghasts from being able to hit the portal and shut it down. Optionally, the player can choose to carry a flint and steel with them in case this happens, or just trick a Ghast into shooting the portal again, therefore effectively re-activating the portal. If the Nether world portal closes from a strike of a ghast and the player is unable to repair it, the player will be trapped in the Nether.

It is not possible to get to the Nether via The End.

History


The Nether was one of the key features to be added in the Halloween Update, and was announced on October 4th, 2010. This announcement stated that there would be a "hell world" that could be used for fast travel. It hinted it would utilize Portals and that distance travelled inside the Nether would be multiplied greatly on the map above ground. On October 10, a screenshot was released by Notch depicting what the Nether would look like. With the rest of the Halloween Update's features, the Nether was released on October 30.

In the original announcement, Notch mentioned "a brand new Hell world." When the preview was sent out on 29 October 2010 to a couple of gaming websites, the new dimension was called the Slip to avoid offending religions and to have a more original name. It was referred to as 'The Nexus' on his personal blog. It was finally changed to “the Nether” on the day of the Halloween update release. The nether is due to be released in alpha 0.5.0 pocket edition for iOS and Android.

Along with the Nether, Ghasts, Zombie Pigmen, Netherrack, soul sand, glowstone and portals were added on November 10th, Lava was made to flow farther than it did on the Overworld.

There was a glitch where The Nether was a biome. This was fixed in an later update.(which one)

In Beta 1.6, Portals were made to function properly in multi player, allowing players in servers to warp between the Overworld and the Nether. 1.6 also fixed a bug where the player could have menus open while inside portals. When warping, the text on screen would appear totally gray.

In Beta 1.6.2, beds in the Nether were made to explode if used. This can be used as a mining technique.

With the "Silk Touch" enchantment in the 1.9 pre-release 4, it was possible to legitimately obtain grass and water using ice in the Nether. Because passive mobs and squid spawn in the only place available, it was possible to use this to control the spawning, which allowed the player to make highly efficient passive mob grinder, something extremely difficult to do in the Overworld since passive mobs stopped despawning in Beta 1.8. The ability to pick up ice blocks with the enchantment was removed in the subsequent pre-release. Water also made Nether mob grinders easier as it can transport items without burning them as well as drown Nether mobs that are immune to lava, such as Magma Cubes and Zombie Pigmen.

In Minecraft 1.0, many new things were added to the Nether:
 * Magma Cubes
 * Blazes and Blaze spawners
 * Nether fortresses and the blocks they are made of
 * Nether wart
 * Ghast tears dropped by Ghasts

File save location
The Nether is saved in the same way normal worlds are, but instead of mixing the world files inside the save folder, the files for Nether are stored in %appdata%/.minecraft/saves/Worldname/DIM-1 (on Windows), whereas normal world files in %appdata%/.minecraft/saves/Worldname. Note that DIM-1 does not contain its own level.dat, as the same level.dat in the upper folder is used for both Overworld and Nether. This means that even if a player changes the level data in the /world folder for a particular save, Nether portals will still take the player to the Nether world originally generated for that save, Vice Versa.

Accessing the void on top of the nether
Since 1.2, the max world height is now 256 instead of 128 blocks. This allows for mobs to spawn, mushrooms to grow, and blocks to be placed above the bedrock surface.

There are several ways to access this void:

1. One of the many ways to get to there is to stand just below the bedrock, using pistons to shove the player into the Netherrack, then disconnect from the game and reconnect. On reconnect, the player will be spawned in the next free space above, which is above the bedrock.

2. You can also use boats, in a different manner to go in game, and inexpensively, to the top requiring just two boats and a bit of damage place one boat on a block with one block of air between it and the ceiling, which needs to be one block thick, and place another boat on the one thick ceiling. Get in the boat, and hold right click to access the void. Sit in the boat on top and reconnect to go back down.

3. Another way is to throw ender pearls at the bedrock, throwing fast enough to get through. The "Limbo" area above the Nether is an extremely efficient place to travel since there are no pigmen to block rails, or netherrack to block Enderpearl teleportation.

4. A less reusable, but simpler, method of glitching up is to drop gravel on the player. While portal networks are very efficient in "limbo", there is no way to connect any portal in the Overworld to a portal in limbo. The only access is by glitching up or admin deletion of bedrock (or a rare chance of an SMP nether spawn being there. This is probably a Bukkit bug however). Typically portals created in the Nether spawn an Overworld portal at about the same height as the Nether portal.

''Note: There is no legitimate way to break bedrock in survival mode other than an alpha only wheat glitch that was fixed well over a year ago. Also bedrock is a non-spawnable block like glass, as such mobs will not spawn above the nether unless other spawnable blocks are placed there.''

Bugs

 * (Xbox 360 edition) Saving in the Nether can cause the Overworld to become unavailable, and the game will crash upon trying to return.
 * In 1.3.1 on SMP, sometimes the player will appear in a void when crossing over to the Nether. Unsupported, they will fall until they die from falling out of the world, this has been fixed in 1.3.2
 * In SMP, although extremely rare, The Nether and the Overworld may merge while generating new chunks.
 * An example of this can be seen here. this effect can also be reproduced by replacing one's overworld data with their nether data. This works in reverse too.
 * Fire can sometimes be found in the base of a Nether fortress's support, having replaced the Nether brick.
 * On extremely rare occasions in SSP, when going back to the Overworld from the Nether, Minecraft may crash. Upon logging back into the world, the player spawns in an area far from the Portal in the Overworld, and all of the items in the inventory are lost.
 * When the player builds a Nether portal at the overworld bedrock layer, enters the Nether, and saves, the player can become stuck in the Void on top of the Nether and has to delete the world, or find a way back, such as dying, teleporting, reconnecting in a boat with one block underneath, move themselves with a mod or third party editor, etc.
 * (Xbox 360 edition) on occasion entering the nether and tossing out an object will cause the game to crash. And will happen every time when using the portal from that time onwards.
 * In 1.3.2, sometimes after you enter the nether, you can get stuck in the portal and not get teleported.
 * If you  ride  a  minecart/pig  into  a Nether  portal,  when  you  teleport  to  the  Nether,  you  will  see  a  huge  purple   swirl.  If  this  swirl  is  removed,  your  head  will  be  sharply  be  jigging  in  random  directions.  Nether  ride  a  minecart  into  a  portal  again!

Trivia

 * The idea for the Nether came from a transportation method used in the novel series The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Within this transportation system, the Ways, people could travel a massive amount of distance in a few days instead of weeks. Like the Nether, the Ways has many dangers. Notch also once said that Jake, his co-worker, was a big key to the Nether. It isn't clear exactly what that means.
 * The bedrock ceiling of the Nether created a rumor that the Nether is underneath the bedrock barrier on the above ground map. This is supported due to the fact that one of Minecraft's merchandise is a shirt that has the Nether below a Cavern, presumably below Bedrock level. This has been dismissed as creative mode/mods let players get above the Bedrock to find the Nether's Void. Notch has stated that the Nether and the above ground map are in entirely different dimensions.
 * The ceiling of the main Nether Cave reaches a maximum y value of 109 at eye-level. (111 when standing on the ceiling) This makes levels 115-125 great for making minecart rails connecting different destinations in the Nether that are free from Ghasts.
 * When the player warps from worlds, the direction the player is facing is maintained (e.g., if the player is facing east in the Overworld when the players warp to the Nether, the player will still be facing east).
 * While inside the Nether, furnaces will stop smelting and plants will stop growing/decaying in the Overworld. However, the day/night cycle continues and all the Mobs present are maintained.
 * Gravel is one of the only three blocks found in the Nether and also in the Overworld (the others being obsidian and bedrock).
 * One of the Level themes in Indev was Hell. It was a normal map, but with a lava ocean, perpetually dim lighting, and a black sky with dull red clouds.
 * If the player stands on soul sand with lava at the same level adjacent to the soul sand, the player will take damage if he/she steps near the edges of the soul sand.
 * In SMP, if the player disconnects and someone places blocks where he/she was, when the player logs in, he/she will spawn on top of the blocks. If there isn't any room above the blocks, the player can spawn above the bedrock layer and will be trapped. Dropping sand or gravel achieves the same affect.
 * There may be some areas where the ocean/lake of lava may go under an overhang and the lava will not illuminate that area. Going in there and creating light (placing a torch, lighting a fire, etc.) will fix this.
 * Pointing at entities (Minecart, Painting, etc.) in the Nether causes the inventory to become 'brighter'.
 * There is no naturally spawning passive mob that has been announced in the Nether as of now, but chickens can be spawned from eggs.
 * Even with no light sources around, the player can see in the Nether, due to apparent "background light". However, this doesn't count as light for other game purposes—lighting up areas is still useful to prevent mob spawning.
 * As of the shift to the Anvil file format in 1.2, it is now possible to build on and above the bedrock ceiling of the Nether, however it is normally inaccessible anyway outside of Creative.
 * Pressing in the Nether will display the biome as "Hell".
 * For the Xbox 360 Edition, there is a wall of bedrock surrounding the map to stop the player from crossing the map limit as shown here.
 * Often, when leaving the Nether and entering the Overworld, Skeletons and spiders are often found, even at mid-day. Spiders will STILL attack you during the day, even though this is normally not the case.
 * Mushrooms can spawn on top of the top layer of bedrock in the Nether.

The End


The End is stark, empty plane containing a large floating planet-like island made of a unique material known as End Stone, dotted with Obsidian pillars.

This dimension is populated by a vast number of Endermen, who spawn considerably more often than in the Overworld, and a lone Ender Dragon, the boss of The End.

Overview
The starless sky and the Void of The End are both composed of a blank, static pattern (though the Void retains a particle effect). The Day-Night Cycle is absent in the End, similar to the Nether, being replaced by a constant dim light. Most items and blocks (including fluids) function in the End exactly as they do in the Overworld, with a few notable exceptions. Compasses will be unable to find the original spawn point, as it cannot be set to a place within the End, and clocks cannot determine the position of the sun and moon, because it is in another dimension (as in the Nether, compasses and clocks will instead flail randomly in the End). Maps don't seem to map correctly, only mapping static; as in the Nether, beds will explode and cause fire when used, and Nether Portals will not activate in the End.

The Player must go through the process of finding, repairing and activating the End Portal found within a Stronghold in order to enter the End.

Once one enters the End, there is no way out without dying, except to defeat the Ender Dragon, whose health is displayed in a special meter at the top of the screen. The Ender Dragon will spawn naturally and float around above a number of obsidian pillars, each of which has an Ender Crystal on top of them. These crystals regenerate the Ender Dragon's health, and as such it is much more difficult to kill the Ender Dragon with any of them active. To destroy these crystals you need to climb all the way to the top of each individual pillar and hit them somehow; however, they explode on destruction, so caution is advised. Therefore, it is advisable to shoot them with a bow and arrow. Once all of the Crystals are destroyed, the Ender Dragon will be vulnerable. However, defeating it is still very difficult, even with a number of players working together. Once defeated, the Ender Dragon will dissolve, and create an exit portal. On top of it there is a Dragon Egg, which is a unique prize, but useless and moderately tricky to collect. When the player goes through the exit portal, the "End Poem" and the credits will roll shortly afterwards, thus completing Minecraft and earning the player the "The End" achievement.

The player then re-spawns in the Overworld and may return to the End through the same portal. The End remains in the state as the player left after the Ender Dragon is slain, devoid of the Ender Dragon and featuring the portal back to the Overworld. Some players use The End after defeating the Ender Dragon to make many efficient Enderman experience farms with the exclusive amount of Endermen and infinite empty space to build in.

Travelling to the End


In Singleplayer mode, the player must collect at least 12 Ender Pearls by killing Endermen, craft a portal to the Nether to collect at least 6 Blaze Rods (from Blazes), and craft the rods into Blaze Powder. The Ender Pearls and Blaze Powder are crafted together to yield the Eyes of Ender.

Then the player needs to return to the Overworld and locate a Stronghold. They can use an Eye of Ender to locate one by tossing it into the air, and following the direction the Eye flies towards until it lands on the ground to be recollected. The player is advised to craft a few extra Eyes, as they will occasionally disappear into The End. Once inside, the player must search the Stronghold for a room with End Portal Frame blocks. If a ravine or an abandoned mine shaft intersects with the room, some portal frame blocks may be missing and the End Portal will not be usable. For the End Portal to activate, the player must insert an Eye of Ender on each of the frame blocks.

An activated End Portal allows the player to enter The End immediately, appearing on top of a five by five Obsidian platform in The End. The center of this portal is always at the co-ordinates 0,72,0. Note that different End Portals in the Overworld will all travel to the same version of The End.

If the player is an operator on a multiplayer server, the player can use the /give command to give themselves item number 119, the item id of the End Portal. Jumping into one placed in the Overworld will send the player to the End. The player may also use /give to give themselves item number 90, the item id of the Nether Portal, which will allow them to leave the End and then teleport back to the Overworld at the player's spawn location.

A player in Creative mode can successfully create an End Portal, since version 12w23a / 1.3 the End Portal Frame is included in the creative block selection. Prior to that version the player can use the pick block function to select an End Portal Frame block, the player must first locate a Stronghold to select this block. After creating on creative the player must destroy and replace a block of the frame (and the Eye of Ender) to activate it.

Floating obsidian platform
Often, you will spawn on a platform off the island. You need to make a path to the Floating Island without the Ender Dragon breaking the path or knocking you off, making you fall into The Void. Even if you hold the sneak key, the Ender Dragon can still launch you off the bridge. While building the bridge, look around to make sure the dragon is not coming. If it is, shoot at it to make it fly away for a short while.

The player is often advised to bring a stack of obsidian, as this block cannot be destroyed by the dragon, and careful placement of it will allow the player to plan and build a bridge to the main island. Building a wall about 2 or 3 blocks high around the platform will stop you getting knocked off the island.

The platform will generate at different Y coordinates depending if you are playing SSP (Y=51) or SMP (Y=48). Since snapshot 12w18a all Single Player worlds will have a platform 3 blocks lower from when it was originally.

Inside the island
You may spawn inside the island and you need to make a staircase up the End Stone to get to the surface. This can be a long process without an Iron/Diamond Pickaxe.

End-affected materials
Just like the Nether, compasses and clocks will spin randomly. Beds will explode when the player tries to sleep. Maps made on the above ground dimension will not show the player's position in the other dimension. For Maps to display the End, they must be crafted there. Unlike maps in the Nether, the indicator will not spin wildly and point in random directions.

Bedrock in the End acts like Netherrack; fire set on top of it will burn indefinitely.

History


In an earlier stage of development, the third playable dimension was known as the Sky Dimension, and had Overworld blocks and mobs, as well as a sky similar to that of the Overworld.

Notch first mentioned the End with his comment regarding the theoretical name-change of the Endermen - some players complained that the name was too similar to that of "the Slender Man", a fictional cryptid created online, and petitioned Mojang to have the mob renamed "Far Landers", a reference to the area of every generated map nicknamed the Far Lands. He joked that instead of renaming the mobs Far Landers, he was more likely to change the name of the Far Lands to "the End". In later Beta versions, the Far Lands were removed and the End was revealed as the native land of the Endermen.

The End was added in Beta 1.9 pre 4 on October 13th, 2011. Notch tweeted "raqreqentba", which could be decoded using the ROT13 cypher, translating to "enderdragon." A Reddit user under the name of "cptqwashi" posted the idea that the new dimension accessed by the new "Crystal Block Portal", would be called "the Ender", and would be home to the Endermen and Ender Dragons. Notch soon gave more information and said that cptqwashi was "100% correct," mentioning that it would be called "the Ender" and that there would be Ender Dragons. However, it was later revealed that it was just called "the End" and that there would be only one Ender Dragon there. In 1.9 pre 4, an Ender Dragon spawned near a portal would destroy it, but End Portal blocks would continue to function even if the frame was destroyed. The ability to create End Portal frame blocks in Creative Singleplayer mode was also removed.

As of 1.3.1, the End's sky is now a dark shade of purple static instead of the multicolor noise it originally was, as well as End Portal Frames being available in the Creative inventory.

File save location
The End is saved in the same way normal worlds are, but instead of mixing the world files inside the save folder, the files for the End are stored in *Minecraft Folder*/Saves/*Worldname*/DIM1, whereas normal world files in *Minecraft Folder*/Saves/*Worldname*. Note that DIM1 does not contain its own level.dat, as the same level.dat in the upper folder is used for the Overworld, the Nether, and the End. Also, note that the Nether's folder is "DIM-1".'

Bugs

 * Going through an End portal while in a Minecart causes you to go through the portal, possibly into the lava below.
 * Quitting the game while in the End without killing the Ender Dragon will sometimes make multiple dragons spawn and sometimes there are no crystals.
 * The End portal block can only be placed in the normal world dimension, and in the Nether and End, will disappear, however a Nether portal block can be placed in the End.
 * When spawning into the end from the Overworld, there is a chance that you will spawn on an obsidian tower floating next to the island which the dragon is on.
 * If the player teleports to another player viewing the credits at the time, the person teleporting will also begin viewing the credits. Logging out while viewing the credits, then logging back in will bring the credits back to the beginning. Before the credits finish, the player who rejoined will have a Login Timeout screen and force them to the title screen. This becomes an endless loop.
 * In SMP, Going through the portal after you have killed the Dragon causes you to visually lose any experience you had. This can usually be fixed with a relog.
 * Within the 5x5 obsidian platform and the 3 high air blocks, anything placed or broken will revert back to the original platform upon re-entry into The End. If you place a chest in this area, it will be broken and the contents drop to the ground as entities.
 * Sometimes you don't get "The End?" achievement.
 * After you defeat the Enderdragon you can see a strange visual bug when you come close the exit portal.
 * You cannot spawn The Wither in The End while The Enderdragon is present.

Trivia

 * The End, an endless, noised sky with a central mass of End Stone, appears to be an inversion of the Nether, an endless cave filled with masses of air.
 * Mob behavior, plant growth, potion brewing, and enchanting are not visibly affected by being in the End, with the exception of luring animals with wheat, which no longer works well in the End.
 * At Y coordinates close to and below 0, particles to the Void is still present, like the Overworld and Nether.
 * If an Enderman stands on one of the crystals, it will burn and die due to the fire on the bedrock block below.
 * When killing the Ender Dragon after destroying the pillars, you can choose either killing it with a sword or a bow, note that if you only have a sword the dragon will approach to you from time to time, but not when you only use a bow.
 * Unlike the other dimensions, The End's landmass isn't "infinite". Only the central endstone landmass is generated and finite. The rest is just infinite empty space.
 * When a mob or player gets damaged in The End, they won't appear red like in the other dimensions. They will just appear darker.
 * In Minecraft 1.2, pressing F3 to view the current biome will show "Sky." This is because the biome ID was used for the Sky Dimension was recycled for the End.
 * If you die and your body falls into the end you will go to the end, but you will remain on the respawn screen until you respawn, at which point you will exit the end.
 * If a Bottle o' Enchanting is thrown at an End Portal the bottle will break but the experience orbs will fall into the lava below.
 * If you use a Water Bucket in the End, the water will spread at an extremely fast rate.
 * You can destroy an Ender Crystal by throwing a Snowball at it, or even an Egg.
 * With the introduction of The End, this is the first time since the 2010 Halloween update that a player can kill himself by falling in the Void outside Creative mode without cheating, exploiting glitches or taking advantage of chunk generation errors.
 * As of Snapshot 12w25a the "sky" in The End has changed, and is now purple instead of greenish.
 * As of Minecraft 1.3.2, the Mark Twain quote in the credits is credited to "Unknown".
 * Nether Portal frames can be constructed in The End. However, they cannot be activated.

The Void


The Void is the term given to the empty space beyond the generated boundaries of each map. It can be seen through gaps in the lowest layer of Bedrock on maps generated prior to the Halloween Update. Until a recent update, when lava generated on layer 2, the bedrock on layer 1 below it was replaced by smooth stone, making it possible to enter the Void without mods. It can now only be entered if one uses a map editor or creative mode to make a hole in the bedrock layer at the bottom of the Overworld, at the lowest or highest layer in the Nether, or by jumping off of The End.

It is endless, however falling into the Void causes the player's health to be depleted by about 4 hearts per second, leading to the player's death in 2.5 seconds or less, should he or she drop. If mods are used to make the player invincible, he/she will fall until Minecraft crashes at Y= -32,000,000.

Entities (mobs and items, excluding the player) entering the Void will be deleted in the following tick (as soon as possible). However, as of the 1.1 update, mobs will fall through the Void until they reach Y=-64, at which point they receive the same damage as the player (4 hearts per second). Items will fall until they reach Y=-64 where they disappear.

Blocks cannot be built on the underside of the Bedrock layer, and although Water and Lava appear to flow into it, they will not actually spread and form beneath the lowest layer. This prevents players from descending into the Void safely via swimming.

There is currently a bug in SMP that will remove chunks client-side, so while the data is still there, the client cannot see it and will glitch if they step on it. This can be fixed by reconnecting or placing a torch next to the missing chunk. If you ride a Minecart into this missing chunk, and then you step out of the Minecart, you will fall to the Void and die, regardless if you disconnect and reconnect.

Ways of reaching the Void

 * In a map generated prior to the Halloween Update, it is possible to find holes in the bedrock that lead into the Void.
 * In maps generated prior to 1.2, it was still possible to find holes in the bedrock leading to the Void under very low-level lava pools. This was fixed, and holes in bedrock no longer exist.
 * Create a Creative world and dig straight down, since in Creative you can destroy bedrock.
 * This also goes for the Nether, but in the Nether, you can dig straight up to reach the Void by flying.
 * In the End, it is possible to simply jump off the islands. This will immediately drop you into the Void.
 * In The Nether, bring at least 2 Ender Pearls and navigate to the upper-most layer of bedrock you can find. Throw them at a steady pace upward onto the bedrock until teleporting on top of the layer of bedrock. You can build here all the way up to Y position 255, lighting is buggy, mobs will not spawn on bedrock (but on other non-transparent blocks), and mushrooms spawn.
 * In early Infdev, the Void acts and provides damage as an invisible lava sea, and making the lava only visible when entering the Void.

Trivia

 * Being near the Void will cause a shortened vision range, meaning there will be a sudden limit of vision, instead of the gradual darkness that normally appears.
 * This means that diamond mines (which should be built close to the Void) will require more torches.
 * The Void is not just under the chunks. Exactly, the Void is also above chunks(above the build limit), and this similarity can be noticed by looking at the debug window. When you travel under chunks, certain text will dissapear. This will also happen above chunks.
 * If you open a hole to the Void and block off all light sources, you can see that the Void does in fact give off light. (Rather, it is the blocks themselves having a light level higher than 0, not the light "shining out of the hole" as it appears to be). However, the bottom of the bedrock on the last layer is completely black.
 * When you fall through the Void, you don't get hurt until you reach the Y-coordinate of -64, and then you take damage at a rate of 4 hearts/second. (Like falling in lava)
 * When you fall into the void on a server with anti flying measures, you are kicked regardless of having a flying mod.
 * Primed TNT can fall into the Void and explode.


 * Riding a vehicle into the Void will result in the player being stuck in the vehicle until he/she dies.
 * If flying is enabled in Creative mode, you can fly around in the top layers of the Void without taking damage.
 * Falling into the Void and the command are the only possible ways to die in Creative mode.
 * When the player is at a Y coordinate above 64, the Void appears blue, and the black fog is not rendered. When the player is at a Y coordinate below 64, the Void will change color to black and the fog will get closer to the player.
 * In Superflat, however, the sky-blue Void is visible until Y=0.
 * As of 1.2.5, Sunlight removes the Void fog, allowing for full visibility.
 * If one was to pass the 32 million block limit (called the Far Lands, before 1.8), the player would no longer clip (the blocks become non-solid) and fall through to the Void, resulting in the player's eventual death. This is also known as a "Fake Chunk".
 * Shot arrows can stick to the bottom of the lowest level of bedrock (they are stuck on a block in the Void).
 * Arrows on fire (arrows that have gone through lava) will disappear once they enter the Void while normal arrows fired by the player do not immediately disappear.
 * Pistons do not work at the lowest level of bedrock (or the level above the Void).
 * If you destroy bedrock in creative mode and replace it with another block, particles, such as rain, will still fall through that block.
 * In creative mode, you can destroy a block of bedrock, place a torch on the inside of a surrounding block, and, if flying is on, float directly below the open space. You will be able to see much farther in the Void. This stops, however, when you move out from under the space.
 * If you have flying on in creative mode and start destroying blocks on the bottom bedrock layer, the orange horizon line of the sun will slowly start to appear. Where the horizon line appears depends on what time of day it is when you do this. This appears to be a glitch.
 * When you die from falling into The Void, your Y position will be -199.10 without health or regeneration potions.
 * In The Nether, the Void is red.
 * Chickens can be spawned in the void using eggs. Like all other entities, however, they die below Y=-64.
 * When falling into the Void, the sky above only renders for the current chunk. This can easily be tested by falling off on a skyblock world.
 * If you fall more than 32 million blocks down, Minecraft will crash. VoidMinus618.png
 * When viewed on a map, the Void is seen as the pattern used for an unexplored area.
 * Many floating island maps have a lot of exposed Void.
 * Flying into the Void in the sky, you will not die, but falling into the Void underneath will kill you.
 * Even the rapid regeneration of an Enchanted Golden Apple does not significantly delay death when falling into the Void.

Sky Dimension


The Sky Dimension was a planned dimension in Minecraft, intended to be the opposite of the Nether.

In a live webcast on the Swedish gaming site feber.se Notch revealed that the Sky Dimension would "probably be a dream world" and that when "you go to bed there is a certain chance that you get teleported into the dream world instead. Then you will be able to do it on purpose later on."

The Sky Dimension was originally planned for the Beta 1.8 Adventure Update, but Notch put it on hold till the Nether was more fun.

The original concept of the Sky Dimension was later rebranded as "The End," a dark place fittingly referred to as the "end of the game," home to the Endermen and the Ender Dragon, and a total conversion of the original idea. Notch tweeted much later that a different "Skylands" dimension probably was still in the making. This version, completely separate from the End, was set to replace the original idea. However, Jeb later stated that returning the Sky Dimension was not planned and therefore is unlikely to be done. It is possible, although very unlikely, that the Sky Dimension could be added as a world type in a future update.

Mod-enabled version
Notch left data in for an early prototype of the Sky Dimension in Beta 1.6 and 1.7. Using various mods it is possible to access this currently unfinished version of the Sky Dimension.

In this version of the Sky Dimension, the build up of the world blocks-wise is very much like the Overworld, but it is always midday and it does not rain or snow (though cloud cover does appear as if it were raining). Although uncommon, it is possible to find Sugar Cane, Redstone, Lapis Lazuli, and more rarely Diamond. Like the normal world, you can also find Dungeons, Iron, Coal, and Gold. The only mobs that currently spawn in the sky dimension are chickens and very rarely cows and pigs. Below the islands of the Sky Dimension is nothing but the Void and a layer of clouds.

History


In Indev, there was a map type called "Floating." It spawned floating islands full of terrain based on the World Theme.

The present implementation of the Sky Dimension was first announced when Notch tweeted a picture of the dimension. It was probably made to be like a "heaven," because the Nether was considered to be like a hell, and The End is similar to limbo and/or slip space. The Sky Dimension was not completely confirmed until Notch released an update via Twitter stating: "And because PC Gamer made such a big deal of the Sky Dimension, I guess I'll have to finish it. Consider it confirmed."

On July 2nd, 2012, Jeb stated that returning the Sky Dimension to the game is not planned.

Bugs


Originally, the Sky Dimension was hidden within the region 0 (Overworld) code. However, starting in Beta 1.9 Pre-release 3, it was given its own region: Region 2, Region 1 being the Nether. However, instead of Sky Dimension chunks spawning within its region, they would generate in the Overworld on Multiplayer servers. This is most likely due to an issue with map generation and saving causing Sky Dimension chunks to save over Overworld chunks rather than being made in their own, separate map files like the Nether does. If a world with Sky Dimension chunks is brought from multiplayer to singleplayer, the area of the chunks will always be Plains biome, even if snow generated naturally on the ground.

Trivia

 * The Sky Dimension is an inversion of The Nether, whereas the latter is basically a large cave with monsters and a massive open space within, the former are peaceful floating islands spawn surrounded by open space. The Nether may also be thought of as being a hell with The Sky Dimension being a heaven.
 * The Sky Dimension, similar to the Nether, has weather disabled. This is likely explained by the fact that it is above the clouds.
 * In The End the biome is "Sky". Most likely because Notch forgot to change the biome classification.

Gallery
The first released screenshots of the Sky Dimension:

Far Lands


The Far Lands were the area that formed the "edge" of the "infinite" map in versions prior to Beta 1.8. The distance from the center of the Minecraft map to the beginning of the Far Lands, 12,550,820 meters, is about 31% of the circumference of the Earth at its equator. When players made it to the Far Lands, they would experience an excessive drop in framerate and the terrain would be severely distorted. According to Notch, the distortion could be fixed, as it was in 1.8 (resulting in the disappearance of the Far Lands). A post on Notch's blog indicates that this fix was accidental, and was probably an unintended side effect of the large changes in terrain generation for 1.8. In 1.8, instead of the Far Lands starting to generate at 12,550,820 meters from the center of the map, the playable area abruptly ends at 30,000,000 meters, and fake chunks (they are not solid, they can be fallen through) start generating. A sure sign that one has reached the edge of the map is that lighting no longer works past the 30,000,000th mark. Versions between Alpha 1.2.0 (Halloween Update) and Beta 1.7.3 rendered fake chunks outside of a limit of 32,000,000 meters; attempting to walk onto them would cause the player to die in the Void. From the beginning of Infdev all the way to the Halloween Update, the world abruptly ended at 32,000,000 meters, and leaving the boundary caused you to be trapped rather than die.

Getting to the Far Lands
Getting to the Far Lands without the use of an external program was a very difficult (or at least time consuming) task, as walking to there from the center of the map would have taken approximately 820 hours (or 34 days). Instead, a level.dat editor could be used to teleport the player there.

The boundary between the normal map and the Far Lands (defined by when the map started generating the distorted terrain) occurred at X/Z of ±12,550,821.

The hard limit where chunks are overwritten is at X/Z of ±34,359,738,368, which is about 23% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. At X/Z of ±2,147,483,648 (crashes at 2,147,483,439), item positions, mob pathfinding and other things using 32-bit integers will overflow and act weirdly, usually resulting in Minecraft crashing.

At X/Z of ±1.798*10308, the position of the player, represented by a double-precision floating point number, would overflow to 'infinity', causing a complete breakdown of arithmetic. Even at far smaller coordinates, the limited precision would cause errors in calculations. For example, at 1016, xPosition + 1 is equal to xPosition.

Using Single Player Commands, it is very easy to get to the Far Lands using teleportation. After pressing the chat key (default "T") to open up the console-like input window, using the "teleport" command (or its abbreviation, "tp") followed by X, Y, and Z coordinates will allow the player to go wherever they want. For example:


 * To get to where the Edge Far Lands' wall was, try "tp 12550820 129 0". Make sure either flying is turned on or damage is turned off, as otherwise you'll fall to your death.
 * To get to where the Corner Far Lands was (the walls' intersection), try "tp 12550820 129 12550820". Again, make sure you're protected from fall damage.

Unfortunately, there was severe lag, and slower computers used to crash upon this teleportation. Opening a GUI helped the Far Lands render much, much faster. You can do this by pausing (pressing Escape) or opening the Single Player Commands prompt again. When you venture out farther above and into the far lands, the probability increases that a "bad chunk" will appear. A bad chunk is a chunk filled with terribly corrupt data, and is the cause of sudden lag spikes that can easily make Minecraft crash.

Alleviating lag in the Far Lands
If you're using Single Player Commands, you can get rid of the lag by using several commands which include, but are not limited to:


 * the killall command to kill all mobs which will be about 4000 per 20 seconds. This should be used at least three times per minute to prevent severe lag from occurring.
 * the drops command to stop blocks from dropping items, so gravel and sand that fall will not cause any lag.
 * the light command to make all blocks as bright as possible so you can actually see the layers underneath the top layer. Also helps with frame rate.

This all will increase your frame rate to a value close to what would be experienced in the "normal" map.

If you don't want to use mods, you can also alleviate some of the lag by setting your game difficulty to peaceful via options menu.

Geography of the Far Lands
Both areas of the Far Lands feature extremely strange terrain, although they are significantly different. In both zones, any area beneath sea level, excluding regular caves, will be flooded with water. The Far Lands' structure is dependent on the seed used for generating the map, although the general patterns remain the same. Beyond X/Z of ±32,000,000, chunks are treated as permanently nonexistent, and will not generate, even though they may appear to. This value is hardcoded in the source code of Minecraft. This means it cannot be changed without editing the source files.

The Far Lands will generate biomes but most biomes will be indistinguishable except by the color of the grass. Desert biomes will be covered in sand and snow-covered biomes will be covered with snow, excluding the top of the map (because there's no space for the snow cover up there). Trees will generate somewhat normally, but can only be found in the upper areas of the map due to the need for grass. However, if you open Single Player Commands, the biome will always be Forest.

Ores can be found up to their respective maximum heights just like in the normal world. Unfortunately, due to the flooding, everything except for coal is difficult, if not impossible, to acquire. In the solid areas of the Far Lands, normal caves will generate but will be limited and small. Along with the caves, dungeons (extremely rare) and lakes can be found in solid areas. Water and lava springs can be found out in the open and in caves.

Much of the open space in both areas is shrouded in darkness and thus hostile mobs run rampant, making the Far Lands as a whole incredibly dangerous. This is especially problematic in the Corner Far Lands due to its layered structure. The flooded zones are filled with squid.

In the Sky Dimension, the Far Lands are not half flooded with water and bedrock does not form at lower levels.

Edge Far Lands (The Loop)
The boundary of the Far Lands Edge (that is, where it meets the regular map) looks like a solid wall, all the way to the top of the map (Y-coordinate 127) that is filled with gaping holes perpendicular to the edge. These holes are extremely long, perhaps infinite, and on the whole seem to change very little no matter how deep the player ventures. They can be blocked, either partially or completely, but such blockages are rare and temporary. This "wall of Swiss cheese" pattern continues beneath ground level, all the way to the bottom of the map, and seems to be partially caused by a large one-dimensional distortion in the map generator's output.

Corner Far Lands (The Stack)
At a corner, when two perpendicular Edge Far Lands sections meet, the Corner Far Lands begin to generate. Unlike the infinite-length holes in the Edge Far Lands, the Corner Far Lands contains more normal terrain. This terrain is "stacked" on top of itself to create a bizarre sandwich with layers of ground and air, which gives it its nickname. Each layer looks like a gigantic floating continent, hovering over the next layer, which is shadowed.

The majority of the generated world is Corner Far Lands, as the "normal" map (before 12,550,821) only makes the center of the world, and the Edge Far Lands only makes its continued sides.

The number of layers isn't always the same, and varies between five to seven. Layers can be grouped into three categories:
 * The top layer. This layer exists at the absolute top of the map. Occasionally there can be a lower area that isn't shadowed (this is technically a dry layer). The lower area is where a majority of the trees and passive mobs can be found, as the top layer receives almost all of the sunlight. Due to the lack of space the area at the absolute top can't have trees or mobs.
 * The dry layers. These generate slightly flatter than normal terrain and have grass, despite the darkness. At sea level massive floating beaches can be found, which will collapse if modified. Hostile mobs are very common here due to being in the shadow of the top layer. Rarely, there are holes in the top layer that allow sunlight to reach these layers. Caves that have one of these layers as their "surface" can occasionally be carved out of dirt instead of stone. These layers have cave-like ceilings made out of stone, gravel and dirt.
 * The flooded layers. Like the dry layers, these generate somewhat flat terrain, but it is comprised primarily of stone. Sand and sandstone will show up down here, even up to 30 meters below sea level. Except for coal, all the ores can only be found in these layers.

Sometimes there are extremely tall pillars of gravel that stretch from the ground to the ceiling of a layer. Likewise, some of the beaches that collapse will create pillars of sand all the way down to the ground, despite there not being that much sand to begin with. The Corner Far Lands is also prone to having near-perfect diagonal lines being carved into the ceilings or floors of layers. If traced, these lines all intersect at the corner (X/Z ±12,550,821). This seems similar to how the Edge Far Lands have a consistent pattern along lines perpendicular to their edge, but is much less pronounced.

In the Nether


The Nether Edge Far Lands look identical to the regular Edge Far Lands, except with Nether blocks. They're constructed out of Netherrack with some Soul Sand mixed in. Glowstone will be found in coral-like structures like the rest of the Nether. Both the floor and ceiling bedrock layers will be present, as well as the lava ocean (at Y-coordinate 31). The Nether Corner Far Lands also look identical in nature to their real-world counterparts (although not necessarily exactly the same). They have a similar stack of layers and contain layers flooded with lava (at levels 31 and below) instead of water.

In the Nether, the terrible lag associated with the regular Far Lands will not occur. This is because there is no sand and very little gravel in the Nether.

If a nether portal is created in the Far Lands of the Nether, entering will cause the purple teleportation animation to continue to swirl around your screen.

In some cases, mostly in 1.0.0, a player will not be able to place or destroy any bricks and most of the generation becomes clear. if this is the case the giant wall will seem to despawn. In these cases there are usally also a corresponding effect of there being a lot more caves generated

Effects of the Far Lands


There are many effects that will be noticed after traveling millions of blocks away from the center of the map. The very first effect that will be noticed is the jumpy or stuttering movement of the map, which isn't directly related to the Far Lands themselves but instead to floating-point precision errors. This jumpy movement is notable even at X/Z of ±500,000. Players will experience extreme framerate drops and very high CPU usage, which will continue until Minecraft freezes completely. The framerate drops do not occur in multiplayer servers, though it will, depending on the server computer's RAM, make the server itself lag. In both Single-Player and multiplayer, the intense lag that is characteristic of the Far Lands is caused by massive numbers of falling sand or gravel entities. This in turn is caused (like most of the rest of the Far Lands' strange effects) by more floating-point precision errors.

As the player journeys even deeper into the Far Lands, the effects worsen to the point where the game is unplayable. At X/Z ±32,000,000, block physics stop functioning correctly. Lighting doesn't work and the blocks, although they appear to be there, aren't solid. If the player tries to walk on these blocks, he or she will fall into the Void. Because of this, it's impossible to get even close to X/Z ±34,359,738,368 or ±2,147,483,648 without the assistance of editors or mods. At excessive X/Z positions, World Renderer no longer works, or takes incredibly long times and uses most, if not all CPU usage. It then becomes almost impossible to close Minecraft without a task manager.

Weather is not affected by the Far Lands directly but is by their terrain. Lightning bolts that hit surfaces at the top of the map (Y-coordinate 127) will be invisible and will not cause fire. The particles created when rain hits these surfaces will be black instead of blue. Snow will not accumulate on these surfaces either (because there's no space). As of Beta 1.6, these effects are unique to the Far Lands as it's impossible to artificially place solid blocks at layer 127.

In Beta 1.8 and above


As of Beta 1.8, the strange terrain may be gone, but some of the effects aren't.
 * After X/Z ±30,000,000, the world will start generating fake chunks, where lighting doesn't work and blocks stop clipping. Fake chunks are composed of grass, dirt, mycelium, sand, bedrock, stone (or Netherrack if you're in the Nether far lands), water, and lava only. No foliage such as trees or grass will generate, nor will mobs.  If trees happen to generate next to the edge between the normal overworld and the far lands, then the trees will appear to "cut off" on the far lands side.
 * Fake chunks are non-solid; entering them will cause you to fall into the Void.
 * Flying about 32 blocks past the edge of a fake chunk will trap you in the air, immobilizing you. This happens with all entities.This seems no longer be the case as of 1.4.2.
 * Also, the clouds will act strangely, moving at abnormally high speeds. Reloading the save should fix the clouds, but the position glitch will still be present, It will be impossible to escape.
 * Chunks stop rendering after X/Z of about ± 30,000,064
 * This seems to no longer be the case as of 12w27a.
 * Water and lava's visual overlays do not render at all considering the nature of blocks in the far lands.
 * At excessive X/Z positions, particles (rain, water, snow, etc.) fail to appear staggered, instead forming rows of flat "panes".
 * The Far Lands do not lag in Beta 1.8.
 * In 1.3.1 (positions unconfirmed for lower versions)
 * Torch Flame Light stops centering on its torch after block X/Z of ± 8,388,607
 * In the ± X Directions, it will render on the center of the X edge
 * On the -X side for odd blocks
 * On the +X side for even blocks
 * In the ± Z Directions, it will render on the center of the Z edge
 * On the -Z side for odd blocks
 * On the +Z side for even blocks
 * In the corner past X/Z of ± 8,388,607 it will render in the corner of the block
 * On the +X/Z corner for odd X/Z blocks
 * On the -X +Z corner for even X odd Z blocks
 * On the -X -Z corner for even X even Z blocks
 * On the +X -Z corner for odd X even Z blocks
 * Piston Shafts Stop Rendering correctly after X/Z of ± 2,097,151
 * They render 2 dimensionally in non-corners between X/Z of ± 2097151 and X/Z of ± 8,388,607
 * They do not render at all in corners between X/Z of ± 2,097,151 and X/Z of ± 8,388,607
 * They render as 3 dimensional rectangles in non-corners after X/Z of ± 8,388,607
 * When facing up or down, they render as 3 dimensional squares (full block size) in corners after X/Z of ± 8,388,607
 * Redstone stops rendering and connecting correctly after block X/Z of ± 4,194,303
 * After X/Z of ± 1,048,576 redstone is still small but it got a little bigger and After X/Z of ± 4,194,303 it does not appear as a single pile at all except for the corners past X/Z of ± 8,388,607 where it appears as a very large pile until you get to X/Z of ± 16,777,216 the redstone appears two times the size of the large pile and could only render in certain places.
 * Rain stops falling in random patters after X/Z of ± 8,388,607
 * In non-corners it falls in rows on the side of the blocks
 * In corners it falls on just the corner of every block

Additional effects occur in 1.0.0:
 * The fire of torches will appear in/on a block next to the torch, instead of on the torch itself.
 * At and past X/Z of ± 8,388,607 lit TNT will Jump to the corner of the cell it was lit in. this means Cannons are impossible.
 * Piston heads will disappear when the block is activated, and will have the same effect as sand does when falling (then disappears).
 * Paintings can be placed over other paintings near the far lands.
 * The floating book in the enchantment table seems to behave abnormally when a player is moving near it.
 * Redstone occasionally appears extremely distorted, with stretched graphics. It can also appear misplaced, or completely invisible, but the highlight box still appears indicating where redstone is placed.
 * Cauldrons, when looked from the inside, one of the sides is translucent, and the graphics for that side appear one block away from the cauldron on the opposite side of where the texture is missing from.
 * Highlight box for cake fails to appear correctly.
 * Lilly pads fail to appear.
 * Flames from a monster spawner only appear on one side of the block.
 * Many lighting glitches and strange air pockets form on multiplayer, although untested in singleplayer.
 * The graphic for end portal block fails to appear correctly, and redstone ore particles are only in the corners.

As of 12w18a, the phantom chunks will start generating chunks as of the regular world and you could go over the 32 block limit.

As of 12w25a, the game lets you travel to 32,000,000 meters until it says "Illegal Position".

Map editors
When viewing the Far Lands in a Minecraft 3D map editor, you will encounter errors. In MCEdit, the selection cubes start to distort and the map distorts when viewing.

In previous versions of Minecraft
Very little is known about the Far Lands of older versions of Minecraft for many reasons; they had no official name, and few knew of their existence. Fewer still tried to make them known to the world, and so they remained unknown. When Notch mentioned them on his blog and gave them an official nickname, interest took hold.

In Infdev, although the Far Lands existed, many of the side effects didn't. However, fire particles and doors would act strange. There was no lag or stuttering movement, and beyond X/Z ±32,000,000, the blocks would simply not render. Walking off the edge would cause the player to become stuck in a glitched position, unable to escape.

It has been confirmed that in Alpha v1.1.2, the blocks would not render beyond X/Z ±32,000,000, like older Infdev versions. The fake chunks started appearing in Alpha 1.2.0, the Halloween Update.

Trivia

 * The Far Lands spawn hostile mobs at a rate far higher than any natural chunk, due to the sheer amount of space in absolute darkness. In the Corner Far Lands, the spawn rate likely approaches the maximum possible because the stacked terrain works like a mob tower.
 * The flat plane at the very top of the Corner Far Lands tends to light incorrectly in day-night transitions. This is because the sunlight calculation doesn't work when the entire chunk is blocked at Y-coordinate 127.
 * Even traveling through the Nether, it would take 102 hours of walking in a straight line to get to the Far Lands.
 * Entering a Portal which would take you to either world's Far Lands will cause Minecraft to crash. e.g. Building a portal at 2,000,000 in the Nether would take you to 16,000,000 in the Overworld, but this would cause a crash. The same cannot be done vice versa, because building a Portal which will take you to 12,550,820 in the Nether can only be done at X/Z of over 100,000,000 in the Overworld, that is, a distance more than 3 times greater than the point beyond which blocks can not be placed anymore.
 * When at the Far Lands, fences no longer have a collision with mobs or the player.
 * If the player places a Painting, it will be off by a few blocks from where it should be.
 * The Edge Far Lands' average block composition: 36% Stone, 25% Air, 23% Water, 10% Dirt/Grass, 2% Bedrock, and 4% others. (Based on a 14x14 chunk selection)
 * The Corner Far Lands' average block composition: 40% Stone, 16% Air, 28% Water, 10% Dirt/Grass, 2% Bedrock, and 4% others. (Based on a 14x14 chunk selection)
 * Even though Beta 1.6 made it impossible to place solid blocks at layer 127, the Far Lands' flat "ceiling" still gets generated there.
 * Because of the debates over renaming Endermen to "Far Landers," Notch jokingly suggested to rename the Far Lands to The End instead. This then became the name for the dimension where the Ender Dragon resides.
 * Notch still hasn't confirmed if he will re-add the Far Lands to the game, since it's almost impossible to get there without hacks or Single Player Commands.
 * The Far Lands could cause major decrease in FPS, freezing, and crashing.
 * Even though the Far Lands themselves were removed, some of the bugs still happen, such as particle displacing. This can be seen if a torch is placed; the flame/smoke will be off-centered. Also, redstone looks weird; it expands outside the block boundaries.
 * When one travels past X/Z of ±30,000,000, fake chunks will generate and will have no clipping and the player will fall into the void and die. (tested in 1.3.2)