Badlands Biome in Minecraft: Gold Up to Y 255 and Mineshafts

The badlands (players still call it the mesa) is a hot, dry biome of red sand and striped terracotta cliffs, and it’s the best place in the Overworld to mine gold. Extra gold ore generates here from Y 32 up to Y 255, so you can find it in the open walls of canyons instead of deep underground.

Three kinds of badlands

• Badlands. Rolling red sand, terracotta hills and cactus, with dead bushes everywhere.
• Wooded badlands. Higher plateaus topped with grass, coarse dirt and small oak trees. It’s the only badlands variant with a ready supply of wood.
• Eroded badlands. Tall, thin terracotta spires (hoodoos). It looks great and is miserable to travel through.

All three are rare. Badlands usually sit next to deserts and savannas, so if you’re in hot, dry country, keep moving and look for the red.

Terracotta for days

The cliffs are banded with red, orange, yellow, white, light gray, brown and plain terracotta. This is the only place where colored terracotta generates in bulk, so a badlands visit can save you hundreds of dye crafts. Mine it with any pickaxe. If you want colors the badlands doesn’t have, see how to make terracotta yourself from clay.

Gold, and mineshafts in the open

The extra gold is the reason to come. Walk along a canyon and scan the walls: gold ore stands out against the terracotta. Underground, the normal gold distribution still applies, so this is a bonus, not a replacement. (The exception: if a dripstone cave or other cave biome generates below, the extra gold doesn’t appear there.)

Badlands mineshafts are also different. They generate much higher, often cutting through canyons in open air, and they’re built from dark oak instead of oak. That means you can spot them from the surface, grab the chest minecarts and rails without spelunking, and dodge cave spiders with daylight on your side. Dark oak planks from the supports are a nice bonus.

Mobs

The armadillo is the one to look for. It’s a shy, passive mob that rolls into a ball when you get close, and it drops scutes you need for wolf armor. You can also brush the scute off without hurting it. Armadillos also spawn in savannas.

Beyond that, the badlands is thin on wildlife. Expect zombies, skeletons, creepers and spiders at night, a few sheep, and not much food. Bring your own.

Should you settle here?

For a mining outpost, yes. For a main base, it’s a hard sell: there’s little wood, no water in many places and few animals. Plenty of players set up a small gold-mining camp here and then haul everything home.

The landscape is a builder’s favorite though. Terracotta spires make great backdrops, and a canyon base with a view is worth the logistics if you plan ahead. Head back to the biomes hub to compare it with other places to settle.