Updated for Java Edition 26.3 (October 2026).
The frozen ocean is the coldest Overworld ocean: a sea with ice on its surface and icebergs of packed ice and blue ice. It forms off snowy coasts. Polar bears roam the ice and drowned lurk below. Come here for blue ice, cold ocean ruins and shipwrecks.
| Dimension | Overworld |
|---|---|
| Where it generates | Off snowy coasts, between snowy beaches and the deep frozen ocean |
| How common | 2% of the surface in our sample (about 1 block in 45) |
| Distance from spawn | Median 1,701 blocks; within 1,000 blocks in 30% of seeds, within 2,000 in 57% (our sample) |
| Mobs | Polar bears, salmon, squid, nautilus, drowned, glow squid in underground water |
| Notable blocks | Ice, icebergs of packed ice and blue ice, snow, a gravel seabed with sand and clay patches |
| Structures | Cold ocean ruins, shipwrecks, ruined portals, trial chambers and mineshafts under the seabed |
| Climate | Cold enough that the surface freezes and it snows |
| Biome ID | minecraft:frozen_ocean |
| Added in | Current form, with icebergs: Java Edition 1.13 (Update Aquatic, 2018) |
Frozen ocean vs deep frozen ocean
The deep frozen ocean is the deeper version further out to sea. In our sample, 83% of its edge touched ordinary frozen ocean, so you almost always sail across one to reach the other. The biggest practical difference is the ocean monument, which only generates in the deep version.
| Feature | Frozen ocean | Deep frozen ocean |
|---|---|---|
| Icebergs | Both: packed ice, some blue ice | |
| Ocean monuments | No | Yes |
| Cold ocean ruins, shipwrecks | Both | |
| Mobs | Same: polar bears, salmon, squid, nautilus, drowned | |
| How common (our sample) | 2.2% of the surface | 1.2% of the surface |
| Median distance from spawn (our sample) | 1,701 blocks | 2,086 blocks |
| Within 1,000 blocks of spawn (our sample) | 30% of seeds | 23% of seeds |
So in our sample of 300 Java 26.3 seeds, the deep frozen ocean was about half as common as the shallow one and a few hundred blocks farther from spawn. If you want a monument in cold water, find the frozen ocean first and keep sailing away from the coast.
How to find a frozen ocean
Look for snow on the coast. In our sample, a frozen ocean’s edge touched deep frozen ocean 31% of the time, snowy beach 21%, cold ocean 10%, stony shore 10% and snowy plains 9%. If you spawn in or near snowy plains, walk to the nearest coast. If you are already sailing a cold ocean, keep going toward colder land until the water ices over.
These three Java 26.3 seeds have a frozen ocean within 500 blocks of spawn. Each coordinate is inside the biome, checked at block level.
| Seed | Frozen ocean at | From spawn | Map |
|---|---|---|---|
7654680367939914212 |
X 198, Z 286 | 209 blocks | Open on the map |
2546873176684604958 |
X 750, Z -58 | 466 blocks | Open on the map |
-7703020730019599874 |
X 146, Z 346 | 129 blocks | Open on the map |
With cheats on, /locate biome minecraft:frozen_ocean finds the nearest one (use minecraft:deep_frozen_ocean for the deep version). Or paste your seed into the biome finder. These are Java seeds; the same number on Bedrock gives a different world. Three of our 300 seeds had no frozen ocean at all within the sampled area, so in some worlds you have to travel far.
What you find in a frozen ocean
Icebergs and blue ice
Icebergs are made of packed ice, often with snow on top, and some are made of blue ice. Blue ice is the slipperiest block in the game, which is why players use it for fast boat roads in the Nether. You need a tool with Silk Touch to collect ice, packed ice or blue ice; without it, ice turns into water and the other two drop nothing. The alternative is crafting: nine packed ice make one blue ice.
Mobs
Polar bears are the only land animal, and here they can spawn on the ice and icebergs. They are neutral, but an adult attacks if you get close to its cub. Killing one drops raw cod or salmon. In the water you get salmon and squid, but no cod: cod live in the warmer cold ocean next door. Drowned spawn in the water in the dark, and some carry a trident, the only way to get one in survival.
The nautilus, added in Java 1.21.11, also spawns here. It is neutral, and you can tame and breed it with pufferfish, then ride it with a saddle. Pufferfish don’t spawn in frozen oceans, so catch some with a fishing rod or bring them from a warm ocean.
No kelp, no seagrass
The seabed is bare: no kelp and no seagrass generate in frozen oceans. If you need kelp for dried kelp blocks or a furnace fuel farm, go to a cold or ordinary ocean instead.
Structures
Cold ocean ruins, built of stone bricks, and shipwrecks generate here, and both hold loot chests with a chance of treasure maps. Ocean monuments don’t; they need the deep frozen ocean. Ruined portals can also appear on the seabed. Bring a Respiration helmet or a potion of water breathing, and break a hole in the ice above you so you have somewhere to surface.
What changed in 2025-26
Nothing changed in frozen oceans in Wilderness Bound (Java 26.3, September 2026).
In Mounts of Mayhem (Java 1.21.11, December 2025), the nautilus was added. It spawns in all ocean biomes, frozen oceans included, and you can tame it with pufferfish and ride it.
In Spring to Life (Java 1.21.5, March 2025), the frozen ocean counts as a cold biome for the new farm animal variants, so a pig, cow or chicken spawned here (with a spawn egg, for example) comes out as the cold variant. They don’t spawn here naturally.
Source: the official 1.21.11 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 frozen ocean’s share of those samples; “distance from spawn” is how far the nearest frozen ocean sample was. The seeds above were picked from the same run, and each coordinate was re-checked at block level.
