How does world seed work in Minecraft

There's a lot that goes into world generation in Minecraft. After the 0.9 update made the world spawn infinite, each one is constantly generating as players continue exploring, and that's a rather impressive feat for a video game.

World seed is an important part of that. Minecraft seeds are often searched for by players to try out new worlds. How do they work?

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How world seeds work in Minecraft

According to the official Minecraft wiki,

"Minecraft seeds are values made up of character(s) (including negative or positive integers) that are used as the basis for generating every Minecraft world."

The seeds are essentially the name of a specific Minecraft world.

In other games, the level often has a name, but for Minecraft it's a number. While names are applicable, there are probably millions of "My World" worlds out there, and they're all very different. The real name of the world, and the text that determines whether players access it or not, is the seed.

The seed can be found in the world settings. If a player would like to use a specific seed to generate the world, that needs to be done prior to the world creation, because it can't be changed later.

In the pause menu from the world, players will need to find the settings button. The first option it opens to is "world settings", which is the top bar on the left hand side of the screen.

From there, the seed is just a scroll away. It can be found underneath the World Type setting, which is usually infinite. The seed will be listed there, but it can't be copied. Minecraft players who want to replicate or share this seed will need to write it down or take a picture.

Minecraft seeds can be found in world settings. (Image via Mojang)

The seed only works as a descriptor. It is attached to a particular world, and can have different numbers to define it, as there are nearly infinite possibilities when generating a Minecraft world.