The /locate Command in Minecraft: Find Villages, Strongholds, Ancient Cities and Biomes

Who can use it

/locate is an operator command (level 2). In a single-player world you need cheats turned on; on a server, being op: in the server console type op YourName. A normal player gets “Unknown or incomplete command”.

This guide is for Minecraft Java, the one servers with Paper run. In Bedrock the command looks similar, but the names don't always match.

How it's written

Since 1.19 there are three forms, depending on what you're looking for. Names can be written with or without minecraft: in front; pressing Tab shows you the list.

Before 1.19 it was plain /locate village and /locatebiome for biomes: a command from an old video gives an error on today's servers.

1. A structure: /locate structure

   /locate structure village_plains finds the nearest plains village. It works for villages, temples, strongholds, ancient cities, mansions…

2. A group of structures, with #

   /locate structure #village finds the nearest village of any type (plains, desert, savanna, snowy or taiga). There's also #ruined_portal, #shipwreck, #ocean_ruin and #mineshaft.

3. A biome: /locate biome

   /locate biome cherry_grove finds the nearest cherry grove. It also works for cave biomes, like lush_caves or deep_dark.

4. A point of interest: /locate poi

   /locate poi nether_portal finds Nether portals that are already built; home, beds; meeting, village bells. It only finds what already exists in generated areas, not what the world could generate.

The most searched-for names

Overworld structures: village_plains, village_desert, village_savanna, village_snowy and village_taiga (villages); stronghold (with the End portal); ancient_city (in the deep dark); trial_chambers; mansion (woodland mansion); monument (ocean monument); pillager_outpost; desert_pyramid and jungle_pyramid (temples); igloo; swamp_hut (witch hut); trail_ruins; buried_treasure; shipwreck; mineshaft.

In the Nether: fortress (the Nether fortress, the one with blaze rods), bastion_remnant and nether_fossil. In the End: end_city (the one with elytra).

Biomes people ask for a lot: cherry_grove, mushroom_fields, pale_garden, ice_spikes, badlands (mesa), jungle, meadow, deep_dark and lush_caves.

What to do with the coordinates

The answer says something like the nearest one is at [X, ~, Z] and how many blocks away. For structures the height shows as ~ because /locate doesn't work it out; for biomes it does give the height.

The coordinates in the chat are clickable: they leave a /tp @s to that spot typed for you to send. With ~ as the height you stay at your current one, so you can end up inside a mountain or in mid-air. The safe way is to go in spectator mode (/gamemode spectator), look around and go back with /gamemode survival; or set a high height yourself and drop down carefully.

For the stronghold, the point it gives is the start of the structure, not the portal room: that's usually a few blocks away; dig around or follow the corridors. In an ancient city, go carefully: the Warden doesn't forgive.

If the structure is far away, walking there can be quicker through the Nether: each block there is 8 in the Overworld. The NapNodes Nether calculator converts the coordinates for you.

When it finds nothing

“Could not find a structure… nearby”: there's none of those within a reasonable distance. It happens with rare ones (mansions) or in worlds with special settings, and every time you search in the wrong dimension: fortress and bastion_remnant only exist in the Nether, end_city only in the End, and stronghold, villages or ancient cities only in the Overworld.

In a flat world or with “Generate structures” turned off (generate-structures=false in server.properties; on NapNodes, in “Settings”) no new structures appear, so /locate doesn't find them.

With biomes, if it says there's none within a reasonable distance, the biome is very far away or doesn't exist with that seed and those settings. Also check the name is the one for your version: pale_garden, for example, only exists since 1.21.4.

Careful on a server with people: /locate has to work out where each structure or biome would fall, and with something rare or far away it can take a few seconds with the server frozen meanwhile. Don't put it in a repeating command block.

From the server console

The console has no position of its own: it searches from the Overworld spawn point. To search near a player or in another dimension you use /execute (in the console, without the slash):

1. Near a player

   execute at Ana run locate structure #village finds the village nearest to Ana, in whatever dimension they're in.

2. In the Nether

   execute in minecraft:the_nether run locate structure fortress finds a Nether fortress near 0, 0 in the Nether.

3. In the End

   execute in minecraft:the_end run locate structure end_city finds an End city. They're off the central island, beyond the gateways the dragon opens.

Without commands: what your players can do

If you don't want your players to be op (on a survival server, better not), they still have the game's own ways: the eye of ender leads to the stronghold, village cartographers sell explorer maps (monument, mansion, trial chambers depending on the version) and the treasure maps from shipwrecks lead to buried treasure.

For an event, the op can search with /locate, set a meeting point and announce the coordinates in the chat, without giving anyone permissions.

On NapNodes

Minecraft servers run Paper on the latest version, so the form in this guide works (/locate structure, /locate biome, /locate poi). From the panel's “Console” you make yourself op (op YourName) and can run /locate with execute to search near a player.

Before switching worlds to look for a seed with the biome you want, make a backup in “Backups”: if the new one doesn't convince you, you go back to the old one.

Frequently asked questions