Altitude



Altitude is a measurement of vertical distance, or distance along the Y-axis.

Definition
Altitude is defined as "the height of anything above a given planetary reference plane, especially above sea level on earth."

In Minecraft, altitude is commonly expressed as the number of block layers above the bottom of the game environment, which is layer zero (0). For instance, sea level is recognized as block layer 62, and clouds appear at layer 127.

Altitude may also be expressed as the bottom face of the block layer, the bottom most of which is at Y-coordinate 0, or Y=0. Sea level would appear at Y=63, and cloud level would appear at Y=128. The player can press to see the Y-coordinate of the top face of the block on which they are standing, and the Y-coordinate of their eyes, which are located about 1.6 blocks above their feet. For example, a player standing at sea level will see the Y-coordinate of their eyes as approximately 64.6.

Limits
The top of the game environment is layer 256, and the top face of the highest block that can be placed is at Y=255. In the New Nintendo 3DS Edition, the top is instead at Y=128. The maximum height the player can reach by flying is Y=2^52. The height where the player loses the ability to fall is Y=2^55. After this limit, the player can only move using a NBT Editor. The maximum height a player can reach is Y=2^1024. Beyond this limit, the game will read the player's Y altitude as 'infinity'.

The highest achievable height in Legacy Console Edition is Y=511 due to an invisible wall.

As of the current version, the maximum number that a player can teleport to is 4096.

In contrast, any player who falls below the altitude of Y=-64 will receive damage every half second and eventually die, even in Creative mode and Spectator mode.

In Bedrock Edition the player dies instantly if they fall below Y=-64

Natural resources and altitude
Features in the landscape of the Overworld are found at different altitudes, as shown in the graph below. There is also an interactive chart.



Note that these charts utilize the logarithmic scale, which means a slight difference in the Y-coordinate represents a large change in the relative frequency of a block type.

Some observations:
 * Looking at water, the amount at layer 62 (sea level) is obvious. Moving down, the amount quickly decreases at layers 56 and 48, the usual depth of river and ocean biomes, respectively.
 * There are corresponding peaks in the amount of clay beneath them.
 * Between layers 33 and 12, most water is falling down sub-ocean ravines, spreading out on the lava-filled bottom at layer 10 and producing most of the naturally-occurring obsidian.
 * Ores and gravel (not shown) usually occur as a fixed percentage of the amount of stone (also not shown), tapering off at the ends of their allowed generation range.
 * This is why coal and iron follow parallel tracks between layers 5 and 60.
 * The one exception is lapis lazuli ore, which has a linear progression up to a peak at layers 13-14.

See the following table for a textual description of resources by altitude and tools needed to gather them.

Other naturally occurring features appear at different altitudes, but all of these features are random and will only appear in conjunction with another block and the proper environment.

The Nether
A similar graph, showing the distribution of blocks unique to the Nether:



Trivia

 * The highest possible altitude the player can legitimately climb to is Y=256, although explosions and elytra launchers can blast the player far beyond this limit.
 * In The Nether, mushrooms can generate at Y=128, above the bedrock.