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Snowy Taiga

Snowy Taiga biome in Minecraft
CommonoverworldCold

A cold spruce forest covered in snow. Igloos can generate here. White-coat foxes spawn instead of the orange variant.

Overview of Snowy Taiga

A taiga with the snow left on. Spruce trees carry it on their branches, frozen rivers cut through, and sweet berry bushes push up through the white.

Foxes are born in their white coat here rather than the orange one, wolves hunt in packs, and rabbits and sheep keep to the clearings. Igloos generate on the flatter stretches, one of only three biomes that get them, and trail ruins can lie buried underneath.

At minus 0.5 this is one of the coldest surfaces in the Overworld, freezing, with 0.4 humidity and snowfall instead of rain, rainfall being for warmer taiga. minecraft:snowy_taiga is common in cold country, has been in the game since 1.0.0, and 26.2 generates it as it always did.

Where to find Snowy Taiga

Cold Overworld spruce forest with snow lying on it. Taiga, Snowy Plains and Grove are its borders.

Find a spruce forest where the trees and ground are covered in snow.

Common in the north of any world. Sweet berry bushes catch you between the trunks, wolves hunt in packs, and an igloo is the only thing anyone built out here. Walking north in almost any direction usually finds one, and following the border of an ordinary taiga is the most reliable of the signposts. Nowhere else do those packs share ground with foxes this often, so you rarely need anything more to tell you.

Mobs in Snowy Taiga

Four animals in the snow, weighted towards the sheep at 20 percent of a spawn attempt four to a group. Wolves and foxes follow on 13 percent each, and rabbits close it out on 7 percent.

The foxes here are born in their white coat instead of orange, they hunt the rabbits and any chicken that wanders in, and they hold what they pick up in their mouth. Wolves come in packs of four and take bones to tame, and a tamed one is a better answer to this biome than armour is. Rabbits leave raw rabbit and hide, with the odd rabbit's foot, and sheep grow their wool back after a shearing once they find grass under the snow. The quiet residents behind those numbers: sheep drop mutton, foxes hunt for their own meal, and a wolf tamed with bones becomes a loyal combat pet. Per attempt the rabbit is 1 in 15 of the animals at any one time. A wolf will become yours for a few bones, and the fox, for example, drops nothing worth the chase. Occasionally a rabbit's foot drops with the hide.

Snowy Taiga blocks & resources

Spruce Log, Snow, Sweet Berry Bush and Fern: a short list, and three of the four are the ordinary taiga with a white coat. The spruces keep the snow on their leaves, so the wood cuts the same but looks nothing alike.

The berries are the difference in the data rather than in the picture: the bushes are planted far more sparingly here than in the warm taiga, so a berry run in a snowy taiga is a walk rather than a stop. Worth a detour if you need wood from its trees and sweet berries in the same trip and do not mind the cold.

The generator gives this wood rare berry patches rather than the full ones the neighbouring taiga is filled with, and that is what made it the longer walk for the same basket.

Spruce Log
Snow
Sweet Berry Bush
Fern

Structures & features in Snowy Taiga

An igloo is the one building tied to this snow before 26.3, and it belongs to three biomes in this list. From outside it is a small snow shelter with a bed and a furnace. Under the carpet is sometimes a ladder, and the basement laboratory it leads to holds a captured villager, a zombie villager in a cell and the brewing stand you need to cure one into the other.

That is the whole older built inventory here. Snow covered spruce, frozen rivers and sweet berry bushes are the rest, while mineshaft tunnels and, beside them, dungeon rooms sit underneath along with the odd stronghold, none of them tied to the snow above. Snowy taiga is also among the six biomes here that carry Trail Ruins. Finding an igloo is the main reason to seek this snow out, since what it hides below is not visible from outside, and that generation reaches few biomes. Reasons to cross this snow start there, and all of it sits under the same white cover.

The newer build is the Abandoned Camp from 26.3, half buried in snow here: snow layers and snow blocks around the white tent, spruce fences, sweet berry bushes, and a few blocks of powder snow that a careless step sinks into. The snowy taiga layouts hold two oxidized copper golem statues, more than the camp of any other biome.

Temperature
-0.5
Precipitation
Snow
Version Added
1.0.0
ID
minecraft:snowy_taiga

Snowy Taiga biome colours

Snowy Taiga grass
#80B497
Snowy Taiga water
#3D57D6
Snowy Taiga foliage
#60A17B
Snowy Taiga sky
#8AABFF

Cold grass at #80B497 with the darker #3D57D6 water that the cold oceans also carry, so the rivers here read bluer than the ones further south. Minus 0.5 is cold enough for snow rather than rain. There is no music of its own and no fog, so a snowy taiga sounds exactly like the taiga it borders.

Snowy Taiga terrain features

  • -snow-covered spruce trees
  • -frozen rivers
  • -sweet berry bushes

Snowy Taiga: what generates per chunk

Ten spruce per chunk, eleven on one chunk in ten. The berry pass here is the rarest of its kind: one chunk in 384, against one in 32 in the warmer taigas. Mushrooms split the same way as elsewhere, brown on one chunk in four and red on one in 256. Forty eight passes altogether.

Snowy Taiga: spawn rules and variants

The snowy taiga is where the fox changes coat. In the ordinary taiga they are red; here the snow variant spawns instead, and the rabbits alongside them come out white.

Farm animals take the cold form and frogs would be the cold kind, which makes this the only taiga on the site where all four winter rules apply at once.

Snowy Taiga: structure depths and spawns

An igloo can stand in a snowy taiga, and this is one of only six biomes with trail ruins buried at fifteen blocks below zero, so the same wood has a house on it and a ruin under it.

There is no village of any type here, which is the difference between this taiga and the unfrozen one.

Structures found in Snowy Taiga

IglooAbandoned Camp

Which biomes border Snowy Taiga

Snowy Taiga is a -0.5 island in a range of -0.2 to 0.25.

  • Taiga: 0.75 warmer at 0.25, Cow, Pig and Chicken turn up.
  • Snowy Plains: 0.5 warmer at 0, Polar Bear and Stray come in, no more Wolf, Fox and Sheep.
  • Grove: 0.3 warmer at -0.2, no more Sheep.

What the mobs in Snowy Taiga drop

Snowy Taiga pays out 4 different drops across the mobs on its spawn list: mutton, rabbit meat, rabbit's feet and rabbit hide.

Sheep is the one to build a farm on: it takes 20 percent of the animal draw in Snowy Taiga and drops mutton. Behind it in the same draw comes Rabbit on 6.7 percent for rabbit meat, rabbit's feet and rabbit hide.

What Snowy Taiga is good for

A snowy taiga gives you sweet berry bushes and spruce logs under snow, which is the same harvest as the ordinary taiga with an extra layer of snowballs on top. The berries still regrow, so the food supply does not stop for the cold.

Foxes born in a snowy taiga come out in their white coat instead of orange, and this is one of only ten biomes where that happens. Wolves, rabbits and sheep spawn here too, and an igloo can generate on the flat parts.

How to find Snowy Taiga

Snow on spruce turns taiga into a different biome, and igloos generate only in the cold version, so use the /locate biome query, which points at the cold spruce with its igloos and not at the green taiga:

/locate biome minecraft:snowy_taiga

Cold spruce requires cheats to be enabled before the cold spruce can be named, or operator permissions on a server, though the berry bushes under the snow survive the walk the command sets you.

Snowy Taiga on Java Edition against Snowy Taiga on Bedrock

The snowy taiga is cold_taiga on Bedrock, another id that outlived the Java name Cold Taiga. Its temperature of -0.5 is the same on both, well below the 0.15 mark where water freezes.

Downfall is 0.4 on each edition, water is #3D57D6 on Java and #205e83 on Bedrock, and Bedrock still generates cold_taiga_hills and cold_taiga_mutated, which Java listed as Snowy Taiga Hills and Snowy Taiga Mountains until 1.18.

Snowy Taiga: Java figures beside Snowy Taiga on Bedrock
Snowy TaigaJavaBedrock
Snowy Taiga in /locate biomeminecraft:snowy_taigaminecraft:cold_taiga
Snowy Taiga temperature-0.5-0.5
Snowy Taiga water colour#3D57D6#205e83
Snowy Taiga snow depth, blocksn/a0.125 to 0.5
Bedrock biomes beside Snowy Taigaall one biomecold_taiga_hills, cold_taiga_mutated

Snowy Taiga name and version history

Unlike the eleven biomes that were renamed along the way, Snowy Taiga has been Snowy Taiga in all 51 releases since 1.13. It was added in 1.0.0.

  • 1.0.0Snowy Taiga starts generating
  • Bedrockstill uses the id cold_taiga

Snowy Taiga: which advancements count

Getting Adventuring Time means visiting Snowy Taiga at least once. 56 biomes count, 11 do not, and Snowy Taiga is one of the 9 cold biomes on the counting side.

Snowy Taiga Biome FAQ

  1. Finding the way in Snowy Taiga

    How to find Snowy Taiga?

    Cheats on, Snowy Taiga takes /locate biome minecraft:snowy_taiga. Follow Taiga without them: Snowy Taiga is never far from Grove.

  2. The Snowy Taiga biome in Minecraft

    What borders Snowy Taiga?

    Taiga, Snowy Plains and Grove, so 3 biomes touch Snowy Taiga.

  3. The Snowy Taiga biome in Minecraft

    How does Snowy Taiga differ from Taiga?

    Snowy Taiga runs at temperature -0.5 where Taiga sits at 0.25, with 2 structures against 3.

  4. Snow from the Snowy Taiga biome

    What does Snowy Taiga look like?

    Snow-covered spruce trees, frozen rivers and sweet berry bushes.

  5. Snow falling in Snowy Taiga

    How hot is Snowy Taiga?

    It snows instead of rains in Snowy Taiga: temperature -0.5, humidity 0.4.

  6. Wolf in the Snowy Taiga biome

    What lives in Snowy Taiga?

    4 on the list, Wolf, Rabbit, Fox and Sheep, and 20% of the animals goes to Sheep. Then 13% for Wolf and 13% for Fox.

  7. Igloo generating in Snowy Taiga

    Which structures does Snowy Taiga have?

    Igloo and Abandoned Camp. Counting biomes, Igloo reaches 3, Snowy Taiga included.

  8. Snow from the Snowy Taiga biome

    Which blocks does Snowy Taiga give?

    Spruce Log, Snow, Sweet Berry Bush and Fern.

  9. The Snowy Taiga biome in Minecraft

    When was Snowy Taiga added?

    Snowy Taiga arrived in 1.0.0, alongside 1 more of the biomes listed here.

  10. The Snowy Taiga biome in Minecraft

    What is Snowy Taiga called on Bedrock?

    Type cold_taiga, not snowy_taiga. Bedrock kept the older id for Snowy Taiga and Java did not.

  11. The Snowy Taiga biome in Minecraft

    Is Snowy Taiga needed for Adventuring Time?

    Yes. Snowy Taiga is one of the 56 biomes Adventuring Time asks for, out of 67 in the game.

  12. What colour is Snowy Taiga?

    Snowy Taiga paints grass #80B497, water #3D57D6 and sky #8AABFF.

  13. The Snowy Taiga biome in Minecraft

    What makes Snowy Taiga special?

    Foxes here are the rarer white snow variant. Sweet berry bushes still grow and provide food and breeding items.

Snowy Taiga chunk, cut open

A snowy taiga chunk with spruces over snow covered grass, ferns pushing through the white, a wolf, a fox, a rabbit and a sheep beneath the trees, and the soil opened to the trial chamber under them