Updated for Java Edition 26.3 (October 2026).
The old growth birch forest is a temperate Overworld forest where about half the trees are tall birches, roughly twice the height of a normal birch. It used to be called the Tall Birch Forest. It isn’t rare: in our sample of 300 Java 26.3 seeds, one sat within 1,000 blocks of spawn in 75% of worlds. Come for birch wood, flowers and trail ruins.
| Dimension | Overworld |
|---|---|
| Where it generates | Temperate lowland forest, usually bordering rivers, forest and dark forest |
| How common | 2% of the surface in our sample (about 1 block in 50) |
| Distance from spawn | Median 615 blocks; within 1,000 blocks in 75% of seeds, within 2,000 in 98% (our sample) |
| Mobs | Sheep, pigs, cows and chickens, plus the usual hostile mobs at night |
| Notable blocks | Tall birch trees, wildflowers, lilacs, rose bushes, peonies, lily of the valley, bushes |
| Structures | Trail ruins, ruined portals, abandoned camps (26.3), mineshafts underground |
| Biome ID | minecraft:old_growth_birch_forest |
| Added in | Java Edition 1.7 as Birch Forest M; renamed Tall Birch Forest in 1.13 and Old Growth Birch Forest in 1.18 |
How rare is an old growth birch forest?
Not very. In our sample of 300 Java 26.3 seeds, it covered about 2% of the land around spawn, roughly 1 block in 50. The median distance from spawn to the nearest one was 615 blocks, a quarter of seeds had one within 258 blocks, and 98% had one within 2,000. Every seed had at least one somewhere in the sampled area.
Old growth birch forest vs birch forest
The difference is the trees, plus one structure. Mobs, flowers and ground cover are the same in both.
| Feature | Old growth birch forest | Birch forest |
|---|---|---|
| Trees | About half tall birches (up to about 14 blocks), half normal birches | Normal birches only |
| Fallen trees (since 1.21.5) | Fallen birches, including a longer fallen tall birch | Fallen birches |
| Trail ruins | Yes | No |
| Abandoned camps (26.3) | Both, each with its own design | |
| Mobs | Same: sheep, pigs, cows, chickens | |
| Flowers | Same: wildflowers, lilacs, rose bushes, peonies, lily of the valley, poppies, dandelions | |
From the inside, the giveaway is the canopy height. Normal birch crowns start a few blocks off the ground; in the old growth version many of the crowns are twice as high, and you see long white trunks all around you. The older Tall Birch Hills biome was merged into this one in Java 1.18.
How to find an old growth birch forest
In our sample, its edge touched a river 34% of the time, ordinary forest 22%, dark forest 11% and regular birch forest 9%. So walk along rivers through temperate forest, and check behind the edge of any birch forest or dark forest you pass. When the white trunks suddenly get much taller, you are in.
These three Java 26.3 seeds put one within 200 blocks of spawn. Each coordinate is inside the biome, checked at block level.
| Seed | Old growth birch at | From spawn | Map |
|---|---|---|---|
3351439796058081154 |
X -146, Z -114 | 185 blocks | Open on the map |
-6992951834132684540 |
X 122, Z -74 | 129 blocks | Open on the map |
3198609090776081548 |
X -114, Z 10 | 117 blocks | Open on the map |
With cheats on, /locate biome minecraft:old_growth_birch_forest gives the nearest one. Or paste your seed into the biome finder to see every old growth birch forest around spawn. These are Java seeds; the same number on Bedrock gives a different world.
What you find in an old growth birch forest
Birch wood
A tall birch has a trunk up to about twice as long as a normal one, so each tree you cut gives more logs. Birch saplings you replant grow into normal-height birches, so the tall trees are worth harvesting where they stand. Birch planks are the pale, almost white wood, popular for modern builds.
Flowers and dyes
The forest floor has a good mix of flowers for dye. Lilacs give magenta dye, rose bushes and poppies red, peonies pink, lily of the valley white, and dandelions and wildflowers yellow. Wildflowers, added in Java 1.21.5, grow up to four to a block. Small patches of the bush block grow here as well.
Trail ruins
Trail ruins generate in only six biomes in Java 26.3, and the old growth birch forest is one of them; the regular birch forest is not. They are mostly buried, so look for a few terracotta or brick blocks poking out of the ground, then dig down carefully and use a brush on the suspicious gravel for pottery sherds and other loot.
Mobs
The only animals that spawn here are sheep, pigs, cows and chickens. Wolves, foxes and rabbits don’t spawn in this biome, so don’t count on it for a dog. At night you get the usual zombies, skeletons, creepers, spiders, endermen and the odd witch.
What changed in 2025-26
In Wilderness Bound (Java 26.3, September 2026), abandoned camps can generate in old growth birch forests, with a design for this biome.
In Spring to Life (Java 1.21.5, March 2025), wildflowers started growing here, and small patches of the new bush block appear on the forest floor. Fallen birch trees now generate too, some covered in mushrooms or vines.
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 biome’s share of those samples; “distance from spawn” is how far the nearest sample of the biome was. The seeds above were picked from the same run, and each coordinate was re-checked at block level.
