Villages are incredibly beneficial in Minecraft. The villagers found here can have various professions that you can use to enhance your gaming experience. Creating a village in Minecraft can be quite intricate, requiring significant time and resources.
Establishing your village demands commitment, especially when facing challenges like zombies, creepers, skeletons, and other enemies. This guide is here to assist you at every stage of creating your village and acquiring villagers.
Updated November 14, 2024 by Jacqueline Zalace: Ready to build a village and gather villagers in Minecraft? We have updated this guide with additional insights to help you construct a secure village brimming with villagers you can trade with. Plus, we’ve included details about a mod that simplifies the transportation of villagers.
Finding a Village
The easiest way to locate a village is by using command codes or checking a website that maps out your game’s seed. If you’d prefer to explore manually, look for villages in these biomes:
- Plains
- Meadow
- Desert
- Savanna
- Snowy Plains
- Taiga
- Snowy Taiga (Bedrock only)
- Sunflower Plains (Bedrock only)
To locate a village using command codes, enter the following line into the command bar:
You can specify the type of village with the following options:
- minecraft:village_desert
- minecraft:village_plains
- minecraft:village_savanna
- minecraft:village_snowy
- minecraft:village_taiga
If you’re unsure, select a village from a biome near you, and cycle through the options to find the closest one.
Creating Your Own Village
To create your own village naturally, start by placing down some houses. For the game to recognize a building as a home, it must contain at least one bed. You can build larger homes and add multiple beds, depending on how many villagers you want to house.
Villagers will only breed if beds are available for them and their offspring. Therefore, you need to craft and position extra beds in your village. To craft a bed, gather the following materials:
- 3x Wool (in matching colors)
- 3x Planks (any type)
Acquiring Your First Villagers
Getting your first villagers can be challenging and involves luck. There are mainly two ways to do this: you can cure zombie villagers that appear near your base or transport villagers from an existing village.
We will explore both methods in detail below.
Transporting Villagers
This method requires minimal resources, but it can be tedious and time-consuming. If the nearest village is far away, be prepared to fend off monsters while escorting the villager back to your base. Consider utilizing the Nether to shorten the distance.
You only need to transport two villagers since they can breed to create more. If you’d like to speed things up, feel free to capture a few extras.
Transporting by Water
If the targeted village is near a body of water, using boats to transport villagers can be a smart move. You can either push villagers into a boat or drive the boat into them. They’ll remain in the boat unless it is destroyed, allowing you to travel long distances smoothly.
Keep in mind that while boats can be used on land, they are very slow and can only traverse flat terrain. Even a small hill can impede your journey.
Transporting by Land
If you’re moving villagers over land, minecarts are a viable option. Push a villager into a minecart to keep them there, similar to how you do with boats. Simply lay down some rails to guide their journey.
This can be enhanced with redstone and powered rails, or you can use a minecart with a furnace loaded with coal. The furnace will propel the villager’s minecart along the tracks.
Nether Shortcut Transport
You can combine the above methods with a Nether shortcut. Just build a Nether Portal and send the villager through it. Make sure the portal’s base is aligned with the ground so that the boat can easily enter. Once you arrive, travel towards your base, remembering that one block in the Nether equals eight blocks in the Overworld.
Transporting With A Bell
A bell in Minecraft can direct villagers home. Ring it, and they’ll rush back to their beds. You can follow them and close off their houses when they arrive, keeping them inside. This is particularly useful if villagers wander too much.
Bells cannot be crafted, so you’ll need to locate one in a village.
Curing a Zombie Villager
This method can be quicker, but it requires specific items. Additionally, zombie villagers are not common, so you might need some luck to encounter one.
To cure a zombie villager, you need:
- Splash Potion of Weakness
- Golden Apple
First, apply the splash potion, and then feed the Golden Apple to the zombie villager. After a short time, they will revert to a regular villager.
Do this indoors to protect the zombie villager from sunlight, which will cause it to burn and disappear during the day.
Why Cure Zombie Villagers?
Curing a zombie villager is beneficial for several reasons. Firstly, it provides you with more villagers, which is helpful if you need additional trading options. Moreover, it grants a new achievement and offers permanent discounts on trades with that villager, lowering the trading requirements.
Breeding Villagers
Villagers will breed when they are willing, but certain conditions need to be met. They need to have either 12 beetroots, 12 carrots, 12 potatoes, or 3 bread in their inventories.
Throw these items to the villagers, or you can convert some of them into farmers who will cultivate, harvest, and share food with their neighbors. This will eventually lead to breeding as long as there’s a bed nearby.
The more food a villager has, the higher the chance they’ll breed.
Repeat this process with your growing villagers to continue expanding your village without the need to acquire more villagers from outside sources.
Villager Professions
In Minecraft, there are 15 different types of villagers. Villagers may be unemployed or classified as ‘Nitwits’, while the other 13 hold various professions. Nitwit villagers cannot gain jobs, but unemployed villagers can if they have access to a workstation.
A villager can become employed by claiming a nearby workstation block. Only one villager can use any specific workstation.
Here’s a rundown of villager professions based on their workstation:
Choose your villagers based on your requirements. Once you trade with a villager, they will be locked into that profession, so ensure you’re satisfied with their trades.
Keeping Your Villagers Safe
With your houses, workstations, and villagers set up, it’s time to decorate your village. Make it your own! Besides decoration, it’s essential to keep your villagers safe.
Create a Wall or Fence
A good way to protect your villagers is to surround your village with fences or tall walls to keep monsters out. If you want to avoid a mundane fence, you can build a high wall, but ensure it’s over two blocks tall to keep out most monsters.
Light Up the Area
To stop monsters from spawning in your village, it’s crucial to keep the area well-lit. Use torches, lanterns, candles, and other light sources to maintain visibility and prevent monster activity.
If you’re uncertain about your village’s safety, find a higher vantage point to observe it. At night, note any dark spots or monsters that could pose threats.
Create Spawn-Proof Areas
In darker areas where you don’t want to alter the ambiance, use normal or moss carpets and half slabs to prevent spawns. Moss carpets blend well with grass, or you can opt for different carpet colors. Additionally, consider placing string down, which will also deter monster spawns.
Consider an Indoor Village
If outdoor safety is a concern, think about making an indoor village. While it may sound impractical, this method can keep all your villagers sheltered. You can create individual houses or a more industrial-feeling trading hall.
What is a Villager Trading Hall?
One effective way to keep villagers safe and organized is to build a villager trading hall. This structure is essentially a large room with all your villagers housed within. Typically, it includes 1×1 compartments for each villager, along with their workstations.
While it may not resemble a typical village, this arrangement can be very efficient, allowing you to group similar villagers (like librarians) in marked cubicles to facilitate trading.
How to Put Villagers on Leads
Managing villagers can be tricky, but there’s a mod available that allows you to lead them around using a lead! With this mod, you can easily attach leads to villagers, making it much simpler to guide them wherever you need.
