Every structure in Minecraft and where to find them

Minecraft's structures are vital aspects of the game. Some of them, such as strongholds and the Nether's dangerous fortresses, are needed to fight Minecraft's final ender dragon boss, while others, such as woodland mansions and ocean monuments, are beneficial for combat and loot. No matter the purpose, though, finding them is essential.

Detailed below is every structure currently found in the game, along with a description and the biomes in which they can generate. This should allow intrepid explorers to find any structure they've been meaning to.

Minecraft's Overworld structures

Ancient City

All ancient cities feature a large portal near the center (Image via Mojang)

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Found in: deep dark

Ancient cities are one of the game's newest structures. They are huge abandoned cities deep underground, infested with sculk. Players must be careful while exploring, as too much noise will summon Minecraft's dangerous Warden.

Abandoned mineshafts

Mineshafts are easier to find with the newer large caves (Image via Mojang)

Found in: Any biome except deep dark

Abandoned mineshafts are cobweb-filled, venomous cave spider-infested tunnels found deep underground. They are filled with chests containing decent loot, but players should travel cautiously as venom is unaffected by even the best armor.

Strongholds

Getting even a few eyes in a portal by default is lucky (Image via Mojang)

Found in: Any overworld biome

Strongholds are one of the game's two most important structures, as they are required to finish the game and find Minecraft's beautiful end credits poem. Players will need to use the eyes of the Ender to activate the portal and enter the end dimension to fight the Ender dragon.

Buried treasure

Found in: beaches, snowy beaches, stony shores (Bedrock only)

Buried treasure is one of the best ways to acquire early loot, as it tends to be filled with gold, iron, and even diamonds. They also provide players hearts of the sea, needed to make conduits. However, players must find buried treasure maps in shipwrecks to find out the location of these amazing structures.

Trail Ruins

Found in: jungle, old growth biomes, snowy, and regular tiagas

Trail Ruins are officially the newest structure added in Minecraft 1.20 as the main archeological structure. They require a new brush item to interact with fully and provide players with pot sherds and other less useful items.

Trial chambers

Found in: Any overworld biome

Trial chambers are the newest structure in the upcoming Minecraft 1.21 update. They are large, similar in scale to strongholds but filled with loot-dispensing trial spawners and locked Minecraft vault blocks. They are also the only place to find the upcoming breeze mob and must be visited to craft the game's new and strong mace weapon.

Desert temples

Found in: deserts

Desert temples are what keeps deserts from being completely bland, other than desert villages. They are pyramid structures, with obelisk towers near the front. Underneath them is a TNT trap protecting four chests. These chests can provide amazing loot, including enchanted golden apples, books, and diamonds, making them great to loot early on.

Igloo

Found in: snowy plains, snowy taiga, snowy slopes

Igloos are of two different types: with and without basements. The type without basements is quite bland, with only a few basic workstations.

The ones with basements are better, as the basement contains a villager, a zombie villager, and the required components to convert the zombie back. This is incredibly helpful for cheap early game trades, indicating early access to Minecraft's best enchantments in book form.

Jungle temple

Found in: jungles, bamboo jungles (Java only)

Jungle temples are rare and hard-to-spot structures, typically overgrown by jungle shrubbery and short foliage. They are trap-filled mossy stone buildings that offer decent early-game loot and valuable redstone components.

Pillager outposts

Found in: plains, desert, savanna, taiga, snowy plains, groves, meadows, cherry groves, frozen peaks, jagged peaks, stony peaks, snowy slopes, snowy taiga (bedrock), sunflower plains (bedrock)

Pillager outposts are one of the most common ways to encounter pillagers outside random raiding parties that can give players the bad omen Minecraft status effect. These towers are flush with pillagers and can also contain captured allays for players to free.

Swamp huts

Witch huts are also useful for finding black cats (Image via Mojang)

Found in: swamps

Swamp huts are not particularly useful for casual players. However, technical players have created highly advanced Minecraft farms with them that can produce large amounts of redstone and glowstone. This makes the rare double-and triple-witch hut generations extremely valuable to technical players.

Village

Found in: plains, meadow, desert, savanna, taiga, snowy plains, snowy taiga (bedrock), sunflower plains (bedrock)

Villages are probably the most powerful structures in the entire game. Minecraft villager trading is unbelievably powerful, and the incredible loot and abundant food they offer can make skipping straight to mid-game easy. The only downside to villages is how quickly they get destroyed by hostile mobs if the player doesn't intervene.

Abandoned village

Zombie villages make for near instant trading halls due to zombie villager spawns (Image via Mojang)

Found in: plains, meadow, desert, savanna, taiga, snowy plains, snowy taiga (bedrock), sunflower plains (bedrock)

Abandoned villages, sometimes called zombie villages, are a variant of regular villages where all the inhabitants have been converted to zombies. They are incredible structures to find once established, as they can be directly converted into a Minecraft villager trading hall.

Woodland mansions

Found in: dark forests, dripstone caves (bedrock), lush caves (bedrock)

Minecraft's elusive woodland mansions are incredibly dangerous due to the numerous villagers that spawn inside them, along with several regular hostile mobs. The loot is typically great, including enchanted golden apples for particularly lucky players. Players might also find trapped allay here.

Ruined portals

Found in: any except deep dark

Ruined portals are an interesting structure, lore-wise. They are ruined Nether portal frames surrounded by Nether blocks, as if the dimension began to seep through, and carrying Nether-based loot. The player is the only entity seen to open dimensional portals, so ruined portals come with a strange implication, even if they are helpful structures for quickly getting to the Nether.

Ocean Ruins

Found in: deep ocean, deep frozen ocean, deep cold ocean, deep lukewarm ocean, ocean, frozen ocean, cold ocean, warm ocean, lukewarm ocean

Ocean ruins are decrepit stone structures peppering the sea floors. They can have suspicious blocks for archeology and also decent loot, including enchanted fishing rods. These enchanted rods make a great place to start working upwards towards Minecraft's best fishing rod.

Shipwreck

Found in: deep ocean, deep frozen ocean, deep cold ocean, deep lukewarm ocean, ocean, frozen ocean, cold ocean, warm ocean, lukewarm ocean, beach, snowy beaches

Shipwrecks are one of the best structures to hunt for early on. They tend to be loaded with food, iron, and maps, as well as incredibly helpful buried treasures. While rare, the fact that they can spawn on beaches means that it's possible for shipwrecks to generate above-water.

Ocean monuments

Found in: deep ocean, deep frozen ocean, deep cold ocean, deep lukewarm ocean

Ocean monuments, the only place to find Minecraft's farmable guardians and mining fatigue-inflicting elder guardians, decorate the bottoms of the game's deepest seas. They can be incredibly dangerous, as the lack of nearby land allows for a lot of guardians to spawn at once.

The Nether's structures

Nether fortresses

Found in: Any Nether biome

Nether fortresses sit alongside Strongholds as Minecraft's most important structure. The only place to find blaze, needed to craft the eyes of ender to find strongholds and activate the end portal, are these dangerous Nether structures.

Technically, they can be skipped if a player happens to have gotten a random seed with a naturally activated end portal, but this is nearly as unlikely as winning the lottery.

Bastions

Found in: Nether wastes, crimson forests, warped forests, soul sand valleys

Minecraft's loot-filled bastions are as dangerous as they are hard to find. Filled with piglins, including the rare piglin brutes guarding treasures in aptly named treasure bastions, players should tread with caution. However, if a player can brave these mobs, the potential loot is incredible.

Nether fossils

Currently, no mob in the Nether is large enough to explain these fossils (Image via Mojang)

Found in: Soul sand valley

Nether fossils are ornate deceased bodies of an unknown Nether beast. Made up of bone blocks, these soul sand valley exclusive structures are incredible sources of bone meal if a player doesn't have a Minecraft mob farm at home. It will be interesting to see if Mojang ever adds a Nether mod large enough to be the source of these fossils.

Ruined portals

Found in: Any Nether biome

Ruined portals are not exclusive to the overworld. For each Overworld-ruined portal, there is technically a Nether one, since they would have existed in pairs before falling to ruin. These ruined portals can give players gold armor to hide from piglins if they forget to equip some before entering the Nether.

The End's structure

End cities

Found in: The end (bedrock), end midlands (Java), end highlands (Java)

End cities are currently the only structure that breaks up the otherwise endless expanse of barren end islands and chorus trees. Infested with shulkers, they are hard to find but have incredible loot, including Minecraft's beloved elytra.

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Edited by Aatreyee Aich