Cold Ocean biome in Minecraft
The Cold Ocean is a darker blue sea between temperate waters and frozen ones. Kelp grows thick over a gravel floor, salmon swim alongside the cod, and dolphins never spawn here. Its stone brick ocean ruins are worth the dive: their chests can hold treasure maps, and their suspicious gravel hides pottery sherds.
/execute in minecraft:overworld run tp @s 640 85 416 0 18Climate
- Dimension
- Overworld
- Temperature
- 0.5
- Downfall
- 0.5
- Weather
- Rain
How to find a Cold Ocean
/locate biome minecraft:cold_oceanMap by Chunkbase, shown as a companion to this guide. Without your seed, it shows an example world. Results depend on the edition and version you pick.
Cold Ocean in numbers
- Share of the world
- 4.5%of the Overworld surface
- Rarity rank
- 48 / 521 = the rarest
- Distance from spawn
- ~1,040 blocksaverage, 1,000 worlds
- Within 1,000 blocks
- 53.6%of worlds
Deep Cold Ocean29.8%
Ocean8.8%
Taiga5%// 1,000 random seeds, normal world. Java 26.2 world generation computed with cubiomes, plus the 26.3 Dappled Forest rule. Estimates, not exact 26.3 values.
/execute in minecraft:overworld run tp @s 640 51 416 -65 10Mobs in the Cold Ocean
Structures in the Cold Ocean
A colder, quieter sea
From a boat, a Cold Ocean looks like a regular Ocean with deeper blue water. You often reach it from a Taiga coast or a stony shore. Underwater, dense Kelp rises from the Gravel, but seagrass is sparser than in warmer seas. The kelp is easy to harvest: break a stalk near its base and everything above it drops at once, ready to be smelted into dried kelp.
This is the warmest sea where Salmon spawn, next to Cod. Dolphins, on the other hand, are missing: squid and nautiluses are the only large swimmers, and drowned still come up at night.
Exploring the stone brick ruins
The Ocean Ruins of a Cold Ocean are the cold type: stone bricks, mossy and cracked, often in clusters around one larger ruin. Their chests hold coal, emeralds and sometimes a Buried Treasure Map. The big ruins can even hide a golden apple.
Brushing suspicious gravel
Some floor blocks in and around the ruins are Suspicious Gravel. Mine one and it is gone, with nothing to show for it. Use a Brush instead and keep brushing until an item comes out. Cold ruins can give four pottery sherds, Blade, Explorer, Mourner and Plenty, along with coal, emeralds, gold nuggets, wheat, an iron axe or a wooden hoe.
Where the water gets deeper, you are in a Deep Cold Ocean: same ruins and same fish, plus the chance of an ocean monument.
✓ Checked in Java Edition 26.3 · updated 1 November 2026
Cold Ocean — FAQ
Why are there no dolphins in my Cold Ocean?
Dolphins only spawn in the temperate, lukewarm and warm seas. In a Cold Ocean, the large swimmers are squid and nautiluses.
Which pottery sherds come from cold ocean ruins?
Brushing their suspicious gravel can give the Blade, Explorer, Mourner and Plenty pottery sherds. The warm, sandstone ruins give a different set.
Which mobs spawn in the Cold Ocean?
Spider, Skeleton, Creeper, Slime, Zombie, Enderman, Zombie Villager, Witch, Drowned, Bat, Squid, Nautilus, Glow Squid, Cod and Salmon.
Which structures generate in the Cold Ocean?
Mineshaft, Ocean Ruins, Ruined Portal, Shipwreck, Stronghold and Trial Chambers.
How do you find the Cold Ocean?
With cheats on, /locate biome minecraft:cold_ocean gives the coordinates of the nearest one. Without cheats, a seed map of your world shows where it is.
