Village

"Villages are some of the most bustling, lively places in Minecraft outside of the player’s own constructions. They’re populated by sort-of-friendly folk involved in various useful pursuits: farmers, fishermen, fletchers, butchers, clerics, armorers and more. Including my favourite: the nitwit."

- Marsh Davies

Villages are groups of buildings inhabited by villagers, cats, iron golems and, occasionally, zombie villagers and wandering traders, that generate naturally in the Overworld.

Generation
Villages generate naturally in plains, savanna, taiga, snowy taiga, snowy tundra, and desert biomes. The type of the village, and therefore the style of all structures within it, is determined by the biome at the village center or meeting point (defaults to plains if it's not one of the other biomes).

The number of villagers spawned depends on the number of beds in the village. Villagers spawn only in houses that have beds, while job site buildings (with no beds) always generate without villagers.

2% of villages will generate as zombie villages; see.

Mobs

 * s (spawn in regular villages only)
 * s (one spawns near a village meeting point)
 * s (one spawns periodically at a village meeting point)
 * s (two spawn periodically at a village meeting point)
 * s (spawn in zombie villages only)
 * s (spawn in any villages)
 * s (spawn in regular villages)
 * s (spawn in regular villages)
 * s (spawn in regular villages)
 * (spawn in regular villages)

Raids
A player who kills an illager captain receives the Bad Omen status effect for 100 minutes. Coming within a village boundary while the effect is active triggers a raid, in which groups of illagers spawn and attack the village.

Zombie sieges
Zombie sieges are in-game events that occur when many zombies spawn in a village, regardless of how well lit or walled off a village is. They have a 10% chance of occurring at midnight every night or during thunderstorms, when a village population reaches at least 20 villagers.

Houses
The number of buildings comprising a village can vary, and not every village is composed of all buildings at once. Apart from the well, which is unique and systematic, the number of buildings of each type is randomly generated, and increased in superflat worlds. Structures are picked from a weighted probability list (libraries are more common than butcher shops). The number of lamp posts has no restriction, as they are generated where no other buildings can be placed. Paths are found between the buildings of the village and often extend beyond them.

As of Bedrock Edition 1.10.0, the rarity of building types in villages depend on village variants, e.g.: libraries are more common in plains villages than in snowy village types.

Paths


Village paths generate at the level of existing terrain, potentially going up steep hills or down ravines without regard for whether an entity could actually traverse the path. Paths do not go below sea level and will only replace grass blocks (with air above), water, lava, sand, sandstone, and red sandstone; all other blocks are ignored and the blocks underneath are considered for replacement instead.

Village paths generate as grass paths where they replace grass, planks where they replace water or lava, and gravel over cobblestone where they replace sand, sandstone, and red sandstone. They are subject to the block substitutions described below, i.e. in desert villages, they generate as sandstone with smooth sandstone bridges over water instead of cobblestone-and-gravel with plank bridges.



In Buffet worlds with cave generation, paths may generate on a separate layer from the rest of the buildings. In floating island generation, paths may not generate at all. However in Bedrock Edition, cobblestone-and-gravel path are never generated as grass path is used to generate on sand, sandstone, or red sandstone.

Styles


Style of architecture building vary depending on village type Some blocks in the village structures vary depending on the village's type.

Loot


$$

Zombie villages


A village has a 2% chance of generating as a zombie village. In such villages, all generated villagers are instead zombie villagers, and all doors and light sources are missing. These zombie villagers will not despawn, but have no special resistance to sunlight. In zombie villages, some wood and cobblestone will be replaced by cobwebs and mossy cobblestone, respectively. All glass panes are also replaced by brown stained glass panes.

Mechanics
A village is always composed of at least one acceptable house and one villager. In some rare cases, villages have generated with a well and nothing else (observed to occur on console versions) and consequently will not register as a village. Upon creation, a village center is defined as the geometric barycenter (i.e. centroid or "average coordinates") of the active beds' locations, and the village's size is the greater of 32 blocks or the distance to the furthest door from the center. Any villager, village golem, siege-spawned zombie, or raid-spawned illagers will path back into the village if they find themselves farther than "size" blocks from the center.

Villages are set by the number of valid beds in the village. A "valid bed" is a bed unobstructed by other blocks so that it can be used for sleeping.

The minimum population of a village is the number of valid beds. If the population drops below that point (due to death or kidnappings), but there are at least two villagers left who can reach each other, the villagers will mate and breed until the population is above the minimum.

Gathering site
Villages have gathering sites where villagers will mingle. The gathering site is a bell located within village boundary. In a gathering site, there is a chance a wandering trader along with their trader llamas will spawn.

Job site blocks
Job site blocks are blocks such as grindstones, smithing tables, and lecterns, which are used by villagers. Villagers with the corresponding professions will spend their time in front of their job site block, except for nitwits and unemployed villagers (villagers without profession overlays).

Popularity
A player's popularity starts at zero, and ranges between −30 and 10, and the following can alter a player's popularity: A player's popularity does not reset on death, and players cannot alter other players' popularity. Popularity is stored per village; a player may have a high popularity in one village and a very low one in another. When a player acts directly on a villager, particles around that villager will indicate the change in popularity. Conversely, because popularity is stored per village, if the entire village is destroyed, any accumulated popularity, positive or negative, is also eliminated.

If a player has -15 popularity or less, the village's naturally-spawned iron golems act hostile to that player until the player's popularity is increased by trading. Golems constructed by the player, however, are always passive toward the player.

Trivia

 * According to Jeb, originally they wanted a system for a village to expand in population if the player improves it. But they found that it was computationally expensive to evaluate what constituted a house, so to make it simple, they decided that a door with an inside and outside counts as a house; however, the house was later changed to beds.
 * Prior to Village and Pillage, the farms in villages would avoid overhanging by filling in the area below them with dirt when they spawned. When the farm overhung a ravine, this would cause a very tall rectangular dirt structure to generate.
 * As of Village and Pillage, a circular or square platform of grass or sand (depending on the terrain) will generate below the structure, which can cause surface oddities in mountainous terrain. This can be clearly seen when a village building generates over an ocean.
 * Farms will generate a few blocks of open space above them if they happen to generate inside a hill. This can cause sand to float over farms in desert villages.
 * Occasionally, surface ravines will generate through villages, causing missing pathways or even entire buildings sunken into the ravine. This also applies to cave entrances and other surface oddities.
 * In the Legacy Console Edition, in the TU19 tutorial world, the village behind the castle has a blacksmith, but there is only a Music Disc, not ordinary loot.
 * In rare cases, players can find very small villages containing only one house, or even just one job site building (a building with job site blocks) without any houses (building with beds), causing the village to not spawn any villagers.
 * If the opposite happens, the village will only spawn a few nitwit villagers and most of the villagers will be unemployed, due to their job site block not being present in the village.
 * Plains village are the only village with much of its architecture resembling the old villages prior to Village & Pillage.