Windswept Hills biome in Minecraft
Windswept Hills are rugged, rocky highlands with steep cliffs, bare stone and only a few spruce and oak trees. The air is cool enough for snow on the highest tops. Under the surface, they hide emerald ore and stone infested with Silverfish, which makes them worth mining, carefully.
/execute in minecraft:overworld run tp @s -2088 125 872 140 25Climate
- Dimension
- Overworld
- Temperature
- 0.2
- Downfall
- 0.3
- Weather
- Rain
How to find Windswept Hills
/locate biome minecraft:windswept_hillsMap 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.
Windswept Hills in numbers
- Share of the world
- 0.28%of the Overworld surface
- Rarity rank
- 11 / 521 = the rarest
- Distance from spawn
- ~1,700 blocksaverage, 1,000 worlds
- Within 1,000 blocks
- 27.4%of worlds
- Spawn biome
- 0.1%of worlds start here
Windswept Forest6.5%
Windswept Gravelly Hills4.4%// 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 -2104 88 888 140 -5Mobs in the Windswept Hills
Structures in the Windswept Hills
What you find in the Windswept Hills
The slopes mix grass with large patches of bare stone. Trees are rare, often none in a chunk: about two out of three are spruces, the rest oaks, sometimes a large branching one. Small bushes, poppies and dandelions grow on the grass. The biome is cool, and the temperature drops with height: on the highest summits it snows instead of raining, and snow covers the ground.
Llamas graze between the rocks, along with sheep, pigs, chickens and cows. Here, farm animals use their cold variant.
Emeralds and infested stone
The Windswept Hills are one of the few biome groups, along with the mountains, where emerald ore generates. It comes in very small veins, often single blocks, scattered through the stone of the hills. Mine it with an iron pickaxe or better. Each block gives an emerald, and Fortune raises the number.
The same stone hides infested stone below Y 63. It looks exactly like normal stone, but a Silverfish pops out when you break it, and a hurt Silverfish wakes the others hidden nearby. Keep a sword ready and don't panic: kill them one by one.
Getting around safely
Cliffs and overhangs make falls the main danger. Carry a water bucket and build stairs rather than jumping. At night, mobs spawn on ledges you can't see from below, so light the routes you use often. The biome has two variants: the Windswept Forest, covered with trees, and the Windswept Gravelly Hills, covered with gravel.
✓ Checked in Java Edition 26.3 · updated 1 November 2026
Windswept Hills — FAQ
Is there emerald ore in the Windswept Hills?
Yes. Emerald ore only generates in the windswept biomes and the mountains. Look for single green-speckled blocks in the stone and mine them with an iron pickaxe or better.
Does it snow in the Windswept Hills?
On the highest parts, yes. The biome is cool and the temperature drops with height, so summits get snow while the valleys get rain.
Which mobs spawn in the Windswept Hills?
Sheep, Pig, Chicken, Cow, Llama, Spider, Skeleton, Creeper, Slime, Zombie, Enderman, Zombie Villager, Witch, Bat and Glow Squid.
Which structures generate in the Windswept Hills?
Mineshaft, Ruined Portal, Stronghold and Trial Chambers.
How do you find the Windswept Hills?
With cheats on, /locate biome minecraft:windswept_hills gives the coordinates of the nearest one. Without cheats, a seed map of your world shows where it is.
Biomes
Stony ShoreWindswept ForestWindswept Gravelly Hills
Old Growth Spruce TaigaTaigaOld Growth Pine Taiga
Snowy Beach
Frozen Ocean