How to create a world border in Minecraft

Minecraft worlds aren't infinite, and the game forecasts this and can limit portions of a world with a barrier known as a world border.

A shimmering striped animated texture, world borders prevent most entities and blocks from passing it. Entities that do pass it take damage until death or returning into the game's bounds, and some fired through a dispenser past the border can even hover in the air. This border is subject to change, and it can grow or shrink, and players can even set them to certain sizes or coordinates.

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Minecraft: Using commands to set or change the world border

The world border's boundaries can be altered with console commands, and some enjoy challenging themselves with small constraints (Image via Mojang).

In Minecraft: Java Edition, players can use commands via the chat console to change the size and dimensions of a world border. For those on multiplayer servers, this can improve things such as latency and keeping a server's file size small. Additionally, other Minecraft players have challenged themselves to survive in small world borders and either expand the borders slowly or attempt to live for as long as possible inside the borders' confines.

Regardless of reasoning, Minecraft players hoping to alter their world border can do so in Java Edition with commands. Players in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition will likely need additional plugins or mods to tweak a world border for a multiplayer server. However, tactics exist in single player worlds to limit a player's permitted area using things like command blocks.

In Java Edition, the following chat commands will allow players to set a world border:

• "/worldborder center <X> <Z>" sets the center of a world border at the designated X and Z coordinates. Many Minecraft players like to select their spawn point as these coordinates.
• "/worldborder set <size>" sets the size of the border in blocks. So for example, "/worldborder set 10000" sets the size of the border to a 10,000 block area.

By default, that's all that's required for Minecraft players to set a world border. However, there are additional commands that can be used to tweak the existing border:

• "/worldborder get" Displays the world border's current size.
• "/worldborder set <size> <time>" will command the border to grow or shrink to a designated size over time. By default, the time value is in seconds so for example "/worldborder set 100 30" would set the border to a size of 100 blocks over the course of 30 seconds.
• "/worldborder damage amount <damage>" dictates the amount of damage a player receives while existing outside of the border.
• "/worldborder damage buffer <distance>" sets the distance in blocks from the world border that a player can traverse before taking damage.
• "/worldborder warning distance <distance>" Decides the distance of how far away a player is from the world border before they are alerted to its presence.
• "/worldborder warning time <time>" Sets the number of seconds when a player begins to see world border notifications when approaching it.

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