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Minecraft's structures are some of the best and most useful features to search for while exploring. They offer a wide range of opportunities, from letting you engage in villager trading in villages to acquiring abundant early-game loot from shipwrecks, buried treasure, and desert temples. There are also a lot of different structures found throughout different dimensions.
Below is a brief overview of every structure found across the different dimensions in Minecraft.
Minecraft's Overworld Structures
Ancient city
Ancient cities are found deep underground within the aptly named "deep dark." They are the sole source of the swift sneak enchantment and are guarded by Minecraft's warden mob, quite possibly the most dangerous entity in this game. Careful use of sneaking and wool will be required to explore ancient cities safely.
Mineshaft
Abandoned mineshafts are mazes of wooden beams, rails, and cobwebs meant to confuse players. Cave spider spawners are commonplace in these areas, making them dangerous even with armor.
Mineshafts can be very valuable to explore due to their ore-rich walls and useful loot chests.
Stronghold
Strongholds are one of the oldest structures in Minecraft and among the most important. They are required for actually beating the game, as the end portal frames needed to reach the dimension can only be found in them. This makes them one of only two types of structures you need to visit to finish the game, with the other being Nether fortresses.
Buried treasure
Buried treasures aren't much of an actual structure. They are single chests found underground on beaches and shores that contain incredibly valuable loot, such as iron, gold, diamonds, food, and hearts of the sea. Maps of buried treasure can be found within shipwrecks.
Trail ruins
Trail ruins are new structures in the game, added in 1.20 as part of Minecraft's interesting archeology system. They are crumbled bits of old buildings filled with suspicious blocks that players can brush for loot, such as sniffer eggs.
Desert pyramid
Desert pyramids are among the structures that make Minecraft's best desert seeds viable. They are large sandstone pyramids that resemble temples. They have deep basements with chests at the bottom, rigged to explode via a TNT trap. Avoiding the pressure plate at the bottom is essential if you don't want to destroy the amazing loot inside the chest, such as diamonds, enchanted books, and golden apples.
Igloo
Igloos have two types: with and without basements. Those without basements just have a crafting table, furnace, bed, and redstone torch. On the other hand, the types with basements also have a very deep underground sublevel.
This basement contains a brewing stand, along with a weakness potion, a regular villager, and a zombie villager. That is everything needed to start a Minecraft villager trading hall.
Jungle temple
Jungle temples are cobblestone and mossy cobblestone structures found deep within jungles, similar to desert temples in the desert. These structures are rigged with dispenser arrow traps rather than TNT. Their loot contains items such as iron, gold, diamonds, armor trims, saddles, and enchanted books.
Pillager outpost
Pillager outposts are dangerous structures inhabited by crossbow-wielding pillagers. These are watchtowers with loot chests at the top that can contain bottles of enchanting, crossbows, goat horns, iron ingots, enchanted books, and armor trims. They also have smaller structures around them, such as training grounds and allays trapped within cages that need saving.
Swamp hut
Swamp huts, or witch huts, are rare swamp structures guaranteed to be generated by a single adorable black Minecraft cat. However, the real use of these structures is in spawning witches at decent rates for farming. Witch farms can be quite beneficial since they provide useful items like redstone, glowstone, and sugar.
Village
Villages are iconic structures for great reasons. They are home to villagers, who are incredibly useful for Minecraft villager trading. Villages also provide ample food and great loot, especially if they're found early on in the world. They are protected by iron golems, which can be used to make iron farms, which is another reason they're amazing.
Abandoned village
Abandoned villages are a rare variety of regular villages that have fully fallen to zombification. This means that the buildings in these areas are decaying and covered in cobwebs. Moreover, all the inhabitants are zombie villagers. This makes abandoned villages incredibly useful for setting up villager trading halls, as the villagers will instantly offer huge discounts.
Woodland mansion
Minecraft's hard-to-find woodland mansions are the most dangerous structures officially in the game, though the upcoming trial chamber can take that title. They are huge, dark-oak buildings filled with evokers and vindicators. Rare woodland mansions also have spider-spawner rooms in them, making these structures even more dangerous.
Ocean ruins
Ocean ruins are small structures made of stone bricks or sandstone, depending on the biome. They are found at the bottom of the sea. The drowned are able to spawn naturally in these structures, and these ruins can also offer loot, such as enchanted fishing rods — including rare Minecraft god rods — golden apples, enchanted books, and treasure maps.
Shipwreck
Shipwrecks are sunken ships that are rotten and decaying on the ocean floor. They are amazing structures to hunt for in the early game since they're filled with iron, food, leather armor, and treasure maps for buried treasures. This also makes shipwrecks and buried treasures the only structures linked to each other in such a way.
Ocean monument
Ocean monuments are the most dangerous of the underwater structures. They are large temples made up of prismarine and are inhabited by guardians as well as elder guardians who will inflict the mining fatigue debuff. This will make drowning a real threat. Ocean monuments are the only source of the game's sponges.
Nether structures
Nether fortress
The nether fortress is one of only two structures you actually need to visit in this game because they're the only source of blaze, which is needed to make the eyes of ender that activate the portal to the end. The structures are also the only source of wither skeletons as well, making them necessary to fight the Wither.
Bastion remnant
Minecraft's elusive bastion remnants are huge castle structures filled with piglins and piglin brutes. They come in several types, with the most sought-after being the treasure room bastion. This variant has a guaranteed netherite smithing template. Other useful bastion loot includes netherite scraps, ingots, ancient debris, and diamond gear.
Nether fossil
Nether fossils are large bone structures scattered throughout soul sand valleys. They are comprised entirely of bone blocks, making them great sources of bone meal early on. Interestingly, nether fossils are only considered structures in Java, as they are considered features in Bedrock.
The multi-dimension structure
Ruined portals (Nether/overworld)
Minecraft 1.20 has only a single structure found across multiple dimensions: ruined portal. This is a broken Nether portal frame surrounded by fire, lava, magma cubes, and netherrack — a frightening sight in the overworld and part of the course in the Nether itself. There is also a chest at ruined portals that can contain golden gear, flint, steel, or obsidian.
The end structure
End City
The end only has a single structure, at least as of 1.20. Reachable after defeating Minecraft's ender dragon in combat, this is an imposing, shulker-infested city found in the outer end islands. These islands are rare and hard to find but resourceful due to their ability to provide the powerful elytra item through floating ships, which can sometimes be found nearby.
