Tutorials/Units of measure

This tutorial is designed to compare units of measurement in Minecraft to real life units and to compare different units used in-game.

Time[]

To convert time in Minecraft to time in real life, simply divide by 72, and vice versa. To measure ticks in Minecraft, multiply the real time (seconds) by 20.

Minecraft Time	Real Time	Ticks
3.6 seconds	= 0.05 seconds	= 1
1 minute	≈ 0.83 seconds	≈ 17
1.2 minutes	= 1 second	= 20
1 hour	= 50 seconds	= 1,000
1.2 hours	= 1 minute	= 1,200
1 day	= 20 minutes	= 24,000
3 days	= 1 hour	= 72,000
1 week	≈ 2.33 hours	= 168,000
1 lunar cycle (8 days)	≈ 2.67 hours	= 192,000
1 month (30 days)	= 10 hours	= 720,000
72 days	= 1 day	= 1,728,000
1 year (365 days)	≈ 5.07 days	= 8,760,000
504 days (1.38 years)	= 1 week	= 12,096,000
2160 days (5.92 years)	= 1 month	= 51,840,000
1 decade	≈ 50.69 days ≈ 7.22 weeks	= 87,600,000
72 years (26280 days)	= 1 year	= 630,720,000
1 century	≈ 1.39 years	= 876,000,000

Amount of items[]

1 item is the most basic measurement in quantity.

1 block = 9 items. Used for resources that can be crafted into storage blocks and back (most kinds of processed minerals, slimeballs, bone meal, melon slices, wheat, dried kelp)
1 stack = 64 items = 7 blocks, 1 item. Note that some items like banners, signs, eggs, and ender pearls only stack to 16. So if someone says they have a stack of eggs, they have 16. For unstackable items, a stack is just 1. So saying things like "a stack of pickaxes" to mean "64 pickaxes" is best avoided. Simply say "64 pickaxes".

One stack of a fully-stackable material (e.g. stone, diamond) will fully occupy one slot in one's inventory.

1 full hopper = 5 stacks = 320 items.
1 stack of blocks = 9 stacks = 576 items when completely uncrafted.
1 full dispenser or dropper = 9 stacks = 576 items.
Mining capacity of an unenchanted diamond pickaxe = 24 stacks 25 items = 1561 items.
1 full chest = 27 slots or 27 stacks = 1,728 items.
Mining capacity of an unenchanted netherite pickaxe = 31 stacks 47 items = 2031 items
1 inventory = 37 stacks = 2,368 items, when the offhand is included.
1 full double chest = 2 chestfuls = 54 stacks = 3,456 items.
- Note: The phrase "double chest" is often shortened to "dub"; e.g. "a dub of cobblestone", meaning 54 stacks.
1 chestful of shulker boxes = 27 chestfuls = 729 stacks = 46,656 items.
1 double-chestful of shulker boxes = 54 chestfuls = 1458 stacks = 93,312 items.

A useful tool to convert different units in the game can be found on http://gamertools.net/minecraft/stacks/.

Health[]

The basic measure of health is one health point (1). One heart (2) is also commonly used when talking about health.

Damage/entity	HP
Chicken	4
Item	5
Instant Damage	6
Diamond Sword	7
Netherite Sword	8
Cow	10
Player	20 × 10
Enderman	40 × 20
TNT	65 × 32.5 max
Iron Golem	100 × 50
Ender Dragon	200 × 100
Wither	300 × 150 ^{[JE only]} 600 × 300 ^{[BE only]}
Player with maximum Health Boost and maximum Absorption	2068 × 1034
`/kill`	3.4028234663852886E38 × 1.7014117331926E+38 (max value of double `0x7F7FFFFF`)

Hunger[]

Similarly, the basic unit in hunger is a food point—1 ()—displayed as a chicken drumstick.

A full hunger bar (20 ( × 10)) contains 20 food points.

Additionally there are another 20 saturation points, which are invisible but are used when performing actions before hunger, so the maximum value is 40.

Speed[]

Distance[]

Minecraft's worlds are a voxel grid where each block represents a voxel which is one cubic meter (1m³) in real life.

Knowing that one block is one cubic meter,we can derive that:

Metric units[]

Length	Blocks	Pixels
1 kilometer	1000 blocks	16000 pixels
1 hectometer	100 blocks	1600 pixels
1 decameter	10 blocks	160 pixels
1 meter	1 block	16 pixels
1 decimeter	0.1 blocks	1.6 pixels
1 centimeter	0.01 blocks	0.16 pixels
1 millimeter	0.001 blocks	0.016 pixels
6.25 cm	0.0625 blocks	1 pixel
62.5 cm	0.625 blocks	10 pixels
6.25 m	6.25 blocks	100 pixels

Blocks	Volume
1 block	1 m³
1 block	1000 litres

Imperial/U.S customary units[]

Length	Blocks
1 mile	1,609.344 blocks
1 yard	0.9144 blocks
1 foot	0.3048 blocks
1 inch	0.0254 blocks

Blocks	Length
1 block	0.000621371192 miles
	1.0936133 yards
	3.2808399 feet
	39.3700787 inches

Blocks	Length (approx.)
1 block	≈ ¹⁄_1,760 miles
	≈ 1 yard
	≈ 3 feet
	≈ 36 inches
1 pixel	¹⁄_28,160 miles
	0.2 feet
	2.46 inches

Blocks	Volume
1 block	≈ 264 US fluid gallons
	≈ 227 US dry gallons
	≈ 219 Imperial Gallons