Updated for Java Edition 26.3 (October 2026).
The eroded badlands is the badlands variant with tall, thin spires of striped terracotta rising out of red sand. It generates in hot, dry regions next to regular badlands, desert and rivers, and it is the rarest of the three badlands biomes. Come for terracotta in bulk, gold ore in the canyon walls and the strangest skyline in the Overworld.
| Dimension | Overworld |
|---|---|
| Where it generates | Hot, dry regions, usually bordering rivers, regular badlands and desert |
| How common | 0.3% of the surface in our sample (about 1 block in 350) |
| Distance from spawn | Median 2,908 blocks; within 1,000 blocks in 9% of seeds, within 2,000 in 25% (our sample) |
| Mobs | Armadillos; sheep, pigs, cows and chickens where there is grass; the usual hostile mobs at night |
| Notable blocks | Banded terracotta spires, red sand, cactus, dead bushes, sugar cane by water, gold ore |
| Structures | Badlands mineshafts, ruined portals; no villages |
| Climate | Temperature 2.0; it never rains |
| Biome ID | minecraft:eroded_badlands |
| Added in | Java Edition 1.7.2 as Mesa (Bryce); renamed Eroded Badlands in 1.13 |
Eroded badlands vs badlands
The difference is the spires. Regular badlands is rolling terracotta hills and flat-topped mesas; eroded badlands has the same striped terracotta and red sand, but pushed up into narrow columns (hoodoos) that stand on their own, often well above the ground around them. Everything else is close to identical.
| Feature | Eroded badlands | Badlands | Wooded badlands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terrain | Tall terracotta spires | Terracotta hills and mesas | High plateaus capped with grass and coarse dirt |
| How common (our sample) | 0.3% of the surface | 0.8% | 0.5% |
| Median distance from spawn (our sample) | 2,908 blocks | 2,641 blocks | 2,844 blocks |
| Trees | None | None | Oaks on the plateau tops |
| Wolves | No | No | Yes, the striped variant |
| Abandoned camps (26.3) | No | No | Yes |
| Extra gold ore | Same in all three: an extra layer of gold ore from Y 32 up to Y 256 | ||
So yes, it is the rare one. In our sample of 300 Java 26.3 seeds, eroded badlands covered under half the area of regular badlands, and 27 seeds had none at all inside the 10,240-block square we checked. If you only need terracotta or gold, any badlands will do. Come here for the spires.
How to find eroded badlands
Find any badlands first. In our sample, the edge of an eroded badlands touched a river 40% of the time, regular badlands 25% and desert 24%, with savanna a distant fourth at 6%. The practical route: head for a desert, follow it to the striped terracotta, then follow the badlands toward a river. Once you are in the badlands, look along the skyline for thin columns instead of flat-topped mesas.
Plan for a trip. The median distance from spawn to the nearest eroded badlands in our sample was 2,908 blocks, and only 9% of seeds had one within 1,000 blocks. Within 5,000 blocks, 80% of seeds had one.
These three Java 26.3 seeds skip the trip and put eroded badlands within a few hundred blocks of spawn. Each coordinate is inside the biome, checked at block level.
| Seed | Eroded badlands at | From spawn | Map |
|---|---|---|---|
-5019013431728188470 |
X -2, Z 34 | 34 blocks | Open on the map |
583157561096932326 |
X -282, Z 42 | 285 blocks | Open on the map |
2152080051980942081 |
X 98, Z 114 | 150 blocks | Open on the map |
In a world you already have, type /locate biome minecraft:eroded_badlands (cheats on) for the nearest one, or paste your seed into the biome finder to see every patch around spawn. These are Java seeds; the same number on Bedrock gives a different world.
What the eroded badlands is good for
Terracotta
The spires are solid terracotta in horizontal bands of plain, orange, yellow, brown, red, white and light gray. That is the cheapest way to get colored terracotta in quantity: no clay to smelt and no dye to craft. Any pickaxe mines it, and the bands are thin, so a single spire gives you several colors.
Gold
Every badlands biome adds an extra layer of gold ore from Y 32 up to Y 256, far higher than gold normally generates. In eroded badlands that ore ends up in the sides of spires and canyon walls, so you can often see it from the ground. Gold ore needs an iron pickaxe or better.
Mineshafts
Mineshafts here are the badlands type, built from dark oak instead of oak, and they generate higher than normal mineshafts. Their corridors often cut through the terrain, so you may spot dark oak supports and rails in a spire or a canyon wall without digging. Expect cave spiders near the spawner in the cobweb corridors.
Mobs and food
Armadillos are the animal you will actually see. They curl up when something threatens them, and brushing one drops a scute. Since Java 1.21.5, sheep, pigs, cows and chickens are on this biome’s spawn list too, but they only spawn on grass blocks, and grass is rare here, so bring food. There are no wolves and no trees; for wood, the nearest source is usually a wooded badlands plateau or the savanna that sometimes borders it.
Weather and water
It never rains or snows here. Water is limited to rivers and the odd spring, though sugar cane grows along the riverbanks. A river is also the easiest way to travel through: in our sample, rivers were the most common neighbour of eroded badlands.
What changed in 2025-26
In Wilderness Bound (Java 26.3, September 2026), abandoned camps were added to many biomes, including wooded badlands. Eroded badlands is not on the list, so you won’t find one here.
In Spring to Life (Java 1.21.5, March 2025), chickens, cows, pigs and sheep started spawning in badlands biomes. Eroded badlands counts as a warm biome, so pigs, cows and chickens that spawn here are the warm variants, warm chickens lay brown eggs, and sheep spawn with warm-biome wool colors, so brown is the most common.
Source: the official 26.3 and 1.21.5 release notes.
How we measured
The numbers on this page come from our own seed map engine, running Java Edition 26.3 world generation. We generated 300 random seeds and sampled every 16th block across a 10,240 by 10,240 block square centered on each world’s spawn. “How common” is the eroded badlands’ share of those samples; “distance from spawn” is how far the nearest eroded badlands sample was. The seeds above were picked from the same run, and each coordinate was re-checked at block level.
