How to get villagers in Minecraft without villages

Villagers might be the single most important mob for Minecraft survival players. This is due to how powerful villager trading is. Given that players can trade abundant resources like sticks, pumpkins, rotten flesh, and paper for emeralds, which can then be converted into enchanted books, redstone, and enchanted gear, it's easy to see why trading is so useful.

However, without access to a randomly generated village, it can be hard to figure out how to access this powerful system. There are currently only two methods for obtaining villagers without stumbling across a village.

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The two ways to get Minecraft villagers without a village

1) Find a random zombie villager

A random zombie villager trapped in a boat (Image via Mojang)

The easier, but slower, method for creating a Minecraft village from scratch is to hunt for a random zombie villager.

All zombies that naturally spawn have a 5% chance of being undead. This means that, given enough time, you'll run into two zombie villagers, which can be cured and used to make a Minecraft villager breeder.

It's worth noting, however, that mob spawners, like those found in monster rooms, cannot spawn zombie villagers. They used to be able to, but spawners were nerfed slightly due to just how powerful Minecraft villager trading is.

There are two important things to keep in mind when hunting for a random zombie villager, depending on if you're playing Bedrock or Java. Whenever a group of zombies on Bedrock spawns, there's a 5% chance that the entire group will be zombie villagers. This chance only applies to a single zombie on Java.

However, Java zombie villagers have a 5% chance to be leaders, which are able to spawn more zombie villagers as reinforcements. Ultimately, this means that it should take roughly the same amount of time to get villagers without a Minecraft village on both versions.

Zombie villagers in the process of curing (Image via Mojang)

Converting a zombie villager is an interesting process. You'll need to brew a splash potion of weakness by combining a fermented spider eye with a water bottle. Then, add in gunpowder to make the regular potion into a splash potion.

Throw this onto the zombie villager, and give it a golden apple while it's weak. This will start the curing process, which takes several minutes.

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2) Raid an igloo

The villagers found in a basement igloo (Image via Mojang)

The only other way to get villagers without finding a randomly generated village is to instead locate an igloo. Half of the igloos that generate in a world have a basement. Within this basement, you will find a regular villager, a zombie villager, a brewing stand, a golden apple, and a potion of weakness.

This is, as previously mentioned, everything that you need to cure a zombie villager, all located in a single spot. What's even better is that having two villagers within an igloo means that you'll be able to set up a villager breeder and get infinite villagers all from a single Minecraft structure.

`Thankfully basement igloos provide both the villagers and the means to cure them (Image via Mojang)

The process for curing a zombie villager in an igloo is the exact same here as previously described: hit it with the splash potion of weakness and feed it the golden apple. After a few minutes, it will revert to a regular villager. From here, add a few beds and give them some food. They will eventually start breeding, allowing you to make a Minecraft villager trading hall.