How to Find a Stronghold and Activate the End Portal

Throw an eye of ender into the air and it flies a short way toward the nearest stronghold before dropping or breaking. Follow it, throw again every few hundred blocks, and when an eye sinks into the ground instead of flying ahead, the stronghold is under your feet. Dig down to the portal room, put an eye in every empty frame, and the End portal opens.

Each eye is one ender pearl plus one blaze powder. If you’re still collecting those, the full survival route explains where both come from.

Following the eyes

Eyes of ender are reusable most of the time. After an eye flies, it either drops as an item you can pick back up or shatters. The break chance is 1 in 5, so a run of bad luck can cost you three or four.

To save eyes:

• Throw from high ground or open land so you can see where the eye goes.
• Travel 200 to 500 blocks between throws when you’re far away. Throw more often as the eyes start pointing more steeply downward.
• Watch for the reversal. If an eye flies back the way you came, you’ve passed it.

On Java, the nearest strongholds are always 1,280 to 2,816 blocks from the world center (0, 0), in a ring of three. If you spawned near the center, expect a trip of roughly one to two thousand blocks. On Bedrock they can generate much closer, and some sit under village centers.

Triangulating to save eyes

You can find the stronghold with two throws if you’re willing to do some map work.

1. Throw an eye and note the exact direction it flies. Press F3 on Java to read your facing, or note a landmark.
2. Walk a few hundred blocks to the side, at a right angle to that line.
3. Throw again and note the new direction.
4. Where the two lines cross is roughly where the stronghold is. Go there and throw once more to confirm.

The diagram above shows how the lines meet. On Bedrock, turning on “Show coordinates” in world settings helps.

Digging down

When an eye goes into the ground, the stronghold is below. Don’t dig straight down. Strongholds often sit near caves, ravines and lava, and a hole straight down can drop you into any of them. Dig a staircase instead, two blocks forward and one down, so you can always see the block you’re about to step on.

Stronghold walls are stone bricks, including mossy and cracked ones, and some are infested blocks that release silverfish when broken. Once you break into a corridor, the portal room can still be some distance away. Throw another eye inside to get your bearings.

For loot rooms, libraries and the full layout, see the stronghold structure guide.

The portal room

You’ll recognize it by the stairs leading up to a raised platform over a lava pool, surrounded by 12 End portal frames. There’s a silverfish spawner on the stairs. Break it, or at least light it up with torches, before you do anything else.

Each frame has a 10% chance to already contain an eye, so most portals need between 9 and 12 more. Place an eye in every empty frame. When the last one goes in, the portal fills with a starry black surface. You don’t need to stand anywhere special to place them.

Before you jump

The End portal is a one-way trip until you beat the Ender Dragon or die. Sleep in a bed nearby, or at least store your valuables, before you jump in. If you die in the End, you’ll respawn at your spawn point, not at the portal.

If cheats are on and you just want the coordinates, the /locate command finds the nearest stronghold directly.