Biome/Before Beta 1.8

In Java Edition Beta 1.8, Legacy Console Edition TU5, and Pocket Edition Alpha 0.9.0 biomes received a major overhaul, removing and changing many biomes.

Biome types
Before the Adventure Update, biomes were much smaller, sometimes smaller than a chunk, and less distinct.

Biome placement was controlled by temperature and rainfall values, allowing interface biomes and making it nearly impossible to generate desert near taiga or rain forest near tundra while making transitions from biome to biome smoother. Height variation was less dependent on biome type, allowing cliffs and mountains to generate up to 128 y-axis in any biome (new versions only allow tall mountains to spawn in extreme hills and hill/mountain variations). Tall grass was also much less present in pre-1.8 worlds (except in the "Plains" and "Rainforest" biomes).

There were 13 biome types: 10 in the Overworld, 1 in the Nether, and 2 unused ones that are in the code but aren't encountered in normal play. These biomes were added in Java Edition Alpha 1.2.0 and relatively few changes undergone to these biomes other than the introduction of birch and spruce trees in Beta 1.2 (which allowed for new chunks to have birch trees generate in forests and spruce to generate in taiga in place of oak trees), the level file format being changed to Scaevalus' MCRegion in Beta 1.3, desert biome borders being rotated due to then not lining up in Beta 1.4, and the introduction of tall grass and ferns in Beta 1.6 test build 3, so obviously those characteristics shown below don't apply to versions before they were introduced. Grass and foliage colors were determined by the noise generated temperature and humidity values, rather than from the biomes directly, so there can be many different grass and foliage colors for one biome. Once the game gets the temperature and humidity values for pulling grass and foliage colors, it uses said values to grab colors from /misc/grasscolor.png or /misc/foliagecolor.png, and applies it to the uncolored grass or leaves.

Generated structures
{| class="wikitable" data-description="Biome-generated structures" ! Structure ! Characteristics ! Image
 * Mountains are hills with extreme slopes. Prior to the 1.8 update, these highly mountainous landforms were found in every biome type with the only limiting factor being the rainfall of the biome increasing or decreasing height variation allowing for high rainfall biomes such as rainforest their unpredictable terrain and dry biomes like deserts and tundra to be consistently flat or mountainous. But from the Adventure Update onwards are very rare outside the Extreme Hills, Modified badlands, shattered savanna, and modified jungle biomes as mountain generation was entirely biome dependent. They were generated as part of the terrain generation algorithm from infdev to beta 1.8 prerealease.
 * Mountains are hills with extreme slopes. Prior to the 1.8 update, these highly mountainous landforms were found in every biome type with the only limiting factor being the rainfall of the biome increasing or decreasing height variation allowing for high rainfall biomes such as rainforest their unpredictable terrain and dry biomes like deserts and tundra to be consistently flat or mountainous. But from the Adventure Update onwards are very rare outside the Extreme Hills, Modified badlands, shattered savanna, and modified jungle biomes as mountain generation was entirely biome dependent. They were generated as part of the terrain generation algorithm from infdev to beta 1.8 prerealease.
 * Mountains are hills with extreme slopes. Prior to the 1.8 update, these highly mountainous landforms were found in every biome type with the only limiting factor being the rainfall of the biome increasing or decreasing height variation allowing for high rainfall biomes such as rainforest their unpredictable terrain and dry biomes like deserts and tundra to be consistently flat or mountainous. But from the Adventure Update onwards are very rare outside the Extreme Hills, Modified badlands, shattered savanna, and modified jungle biomes as mountain generation was entirely biome dependent. They were generated as part of the terrain generation algorithm from infdev to beta 1.8 prerealease.

Cliffs are often carved into hills, and sometimes have caves protruding into them. These caves contain the same blocks which one would find at the same layer in the hill they are carved out of. sometimes cliffs intersected with hills in strange ways allowing for many chaotic landscapes to generate.

some of the most famous seeds at the time were notable for the chaotic and unpredictable nature of cliffs and hills. Gravel beaches had no such border and thus posed dangers like falling into caverns located right underneath them. The famous "404 challenge" was possible due to this feature.
 * Beta Mountain.png
 * Oceans are large bodies of water with every single water tile being a spring. Prior to the Adventure Update, oceans were generated as part of the terrain generation algorithm, but since then they are part of the Ocean biome. Due to this change, until Java Edition 1.7, "infinite oceans" generated and with continents being isolated and with islands being very sparse.
 * BetaOcean.png
 * Beaches are usually generated next to oceans or lakes and covered all nearby low elevated shorelines. They could be found in any biome. They came in two varieties: sand beach and gravel beach. Sandstone was located below sand in sand beaches and occasional patches of clay could be found.
 * BetaOcean.png
 * Beaches are usually generated next to oceans or lakes and covered all nearby low elevated shorelines. They could be found in any biome. They came in two varieties: sand beach and gravel beach. Sandstone was located below sand in sand beaches and occasional patches of clay could be found.
 * Beaches are usually generated next to oceans or lakes and covered all nearby low elevated shorelines. They could be found in any biome. They came in two varieties: sand beach and gravel beach. Sandstone was located below sand in sand beaches and occasional patches of clay could be found.
 * Beaches are usually generated next to oceans or lakes and covered all nearby low elevated shorelines. They could be found in any biome. They came in two varieties: sand beach and gravel beach. Sandstone was located below sand in sand beaches and occasional patches of clay could be found.

It is also possible to find exposed or partially buried dungeons here due to sand and gravel being affected by gravity.

Due to the changes in the terrain generation algorithm Java Edition Beta 1.8 update beaches were removed completely from the game. They later returned with Minecraft Java Edition 1.1 as a separate biome, but were lacking the spaciousness of old beaches from Beta versions ever since, and only came in the sand variety (Java Edition 1.7 added a beach biome that is made of stone and gravel [stone shore] when a beach generates beside an extreme hills biome).
 * Sand beach 2.png

Biom/Vor Beta 1.8 バイオーム/Beta 1.8以前 История биомов и натуральных структур 生物群系/Beta 1.8前