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How to find a Village in Minecraft

The best method for finding a Minecraft Village

Looking for tips on how to find villages in Minecraft? Whether you are looking to trade with some friendly faces, or you’re planning to loot the local blacksmith to find a saddle for your horse, this guide has everything that you need to know to find a village. We’ll also teach you any risks that you should look out for when you arrive, so that you aren’t surprised when zombies try to eat your brains.

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How to find a Minecraft Village

Villages, just like other Minecraft structures, generate naturally when you create your Minecraft world. Villages can be found in the following biomes:

  • Desert
  • Plains
  • Savanna
  • Taiga
  • Snowy Tundra

The style and architecture of each village differs based on its biome. But mostly they consist of a smattering of houses, farms, and one or two larger structures, all connected by lit pathways. Villages are usually inhabited by villagers, cats, and farm animals; but occasionally there will also be an Iron Golem protecting a village.

In Survival Mode, there's no special way to find the nearest Minecraft village: you just have to start exploring any of the above biomes that you come across. Or, if you'd like, you can make things much easier for yourself by using one of the village spawns in our list of the best Minecraft seeds.

A desert village in Minecraft, viewed from an aerial perspective with shaders enabled.

Minecraft village finder command

If you have Minecraft cheats enabled, however, finding the nearest Minecraft village becomes easy. All you need to do is open the console with the "/" key, and type:

/locate village

Then hit Enter, and you'll be presented with the coordinates of the nearest Minecraft village to your current location!


If you're looking to create your own Minecraft village, be sure to check out our Minecraft house ideas and Minecraft build ideas for inspiration! You can also make your village look as good as possible with the help of the best Minecraft shaders!


How to trade with Minecraft villagers

Aside from the chests filled with goodies that you can often find inside various buildings, the other reason you might want to find a Minecraft village is so you can trade with the villagers for useful and exotic items. Some items can be extremely powerful, such as Diamond armour that has been enchanted with various powerful benefits.

You can right-click on a villager to initiate a trade with them (but note that not all villagers are able to trade with you). Trading uses Emeralds as a currency, so you'll need to stock up on Emeralds if you want to trade.

A Zombie Villager in Minecraft staring at the player.

Minecraft Zombie villages

When a Minecraft village is spawned during world generation, there is a 2% chance that it will turn into a Zombie village. Zombie villages are overgrown with cobwebs and mossy cobblestone, and they are populated exclusively by Zombie Villagers, a type of hostile Minecraft mob.

There's also a 10% chance each night for ordinary Minecraft villages (if they're large enough) to become the target of a Zombie siege. If a player is not there to protect the village (which can happen a lot if you aren't playing on a Minecraft server with lots of players), there is a good chance of the village being overrun.


Minecraft Village raids

If you kill an Illager Captain, you'll be marked with the Bad Omen status effect for 100 minutes. If you walk into a Minecraft village while Bad Omen is applied to you, this will spark an Illager raid on that village.

The threat posed by the raid depends on the level of Bad Omen you've accrued (by killing multiple Illager Captains in a short space of time). The bulk of the raiders will be Pillagers, but you may also have to fend off Vindicators, Ravagers, Witches, and Evokers too.


And that pretty much wraps up this Minecraft village guide - but that's not all the Minecraft-related wisdom we have to offer! If you want to inject some more variance into the look of each Minecraft village, check out our list of the best Minecraft Texture Packs. You can also take advantage of our knowledge on Minecraft maps to make finding villages easier. And to completely change the nature of Villages and how they spawn, you can look into Minecraft mods which could do just that!

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