A living cross-section of the world, drawn from the game's real worldgen odds. Drag to set your mining depth, click an ore column to inspect it.
Branch mine at Y -59 with 1x2 tunnels spaced two blocks apart. Avoid open caves: half or more of air-exposed veins are deleted.
95%
87%
46%
33%
12%Values come straight from the game's worldgen files. Click a card to inspect the ore in the dig site above.
CoalY 96Y 0 to 320 · MixedIronY 16Y -64 to 320 · Mixed
CopperY 48Y -16 to 112 · TriangleGoldY -16Y -64 to 32 · MixedLapis LazuliY 0Y -64 to 64 · MixedRedstoneY -59Y -64 to 15 · MixedDiamondY -59Y -64 to 16 · Mixed
EmeraldY 232Y -16 to 320 · Triangle · mountainsSince 1.18, every ore generates in one or more batches, and each batch is either a triangle distribution with a single peak Y-level or a uniform band where every layer has the same chance. The visualization above is computed directly from those worldgen files, not from approximations.
Triangle distributions concentrate ore around a peak. Diamond, for example, is a triangle that technically spans Y -144 to Y 16, so the part you can actually reach (Y -64 to Y 16) keeps getting denser all the way down to bedrock. Uniform distributions are flat: the upper coal batch spawns with equal probability everywhere from Y 136 to the world top, which is why exposed mountainsides are covered in it.
Air exposure matters for the deep ores. Diamond, gold, lapis, and the lower coal batch have a discard chance when a vein would touch air: 50% to 100% of exposed veins are simply deleted during generation. That is why branch mining through solid stone finds more diamonds than walking through open caves, and why the buried diamond and lapis batches only exist away from cave systems.
A few ores are biome dependent: emerald only generates in mountain and windswept-hills biomes (and gets denser with altitude), Badlands add 50 extra gold veins per chunk between Y 32 and Y 256, and Dripstone Caves double copper generation with much larger veins. In the Nether, basalt deltas double both quartz and nether gold counts.
1.17.1 and earlier: the classic layout. World height ran from Y 0 to Y 255 and almost everything was uniform: diamond and redstone in Y 1-15, lapis around Y 14, gold below Y 32, iron below Y 64, coal everywhere below Y 128. Y 11 was the universal mining level.
1.18 (Caves and Cliffs Part 2): the big rework. The world was extended to Y -64 through Y 320, ores moved to triangle distributions with defined peaks, and the modern answers appeared: diamonds at Y -59, iron at Y 16 or Y 232, copper at Y 48, coal at Y 96.
From 1.19 through 26.3 the distribution has been remarkably stable. The only notable change is the extra uniform diamond batch between Y -64 and Y -4 (two more veins per chunk), which makes deep mining slightly better than it was in 1.18. Use the version switcher above to compare any two versions directly.
Each ore has its own page with the full batch breakdown, the biome rules that apply to it, and the reason its best level is what it is.
Y -59, one block above the bedrock floor. Diamond generation increases all the way down to Y -64, and 26.3 keeps the extra uniform batch (Y -64 to Y -4) introduced in 1.20, so the bottom of the world is as good as it has ever been. Branch mine with 1x2 tunnels spaced two blocks apart and avoid open caves, since half or more of air-exposed diamond veins are discarded.
Y 16 for normal branch mining. Iron also has a second, much larger peak at Y 232: if you have a tall mountain nearby, stripping its exposed stone above Y 200 out-produces any underground mine.
Yes. Coal is most common above Y 136, copper peaks at Y 48, iron peaks again at Y 232, and emerald keeps getting denser the higher you climb in mountain biomes. Only diamond, redstone, lapis, and deep gold favor the bottom of the world.
Everything. The world grew from 256 to 384 blocks tall (Y -64 to Y 320), uniform ore bands were replaced with triangle distributions, generation was split into multiple batches per ore, and air-exposure discarding was added for the valuable deep ores. Every pre-1.18 mining level became obsolete overnight; use the 1.17.1 option in the version switcher to see the difference.
Y 15 in the Nether. The main batch is a triangle from Y 8 to Y 24 peaking at Y 16, plus a thin scatter batch up to Y 119. Ancient debris only generates fully buried and is blast resistant, so bed mining or TNT tunnels at Y 15 remain the fastest farm.
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