River

A river biome.

A river is common technical biome. Rivers serve as borders between various other biomes, and usually lead to oceans, although they can also form loops.

Description

Rivers are thin, lengthy biomes that frequently generate across the world. They typically serve as a division between two different biomes, but can also split a single biome in two. They are filled with water up to sea level, though rivers may run dry in certain areas due to higher than usual elevation. Exposed grass in rivers takes on a bluish-green hue. Riverbeds consist of dirt, sand, gravel, and clay, and are one of the few places where clay generates, alongside lakes, swamp marshes and ocean hilltops. Seagrass generates atop the riverbed, and sugar cane occasionally generates on the riverbank. Neither passive nor hostile‌^{[BE only]} mobs (except drowned) spawn within river biomes themselves, but frequently wander into them from the surrounding biomes if they can spawn there. Drowned can spawn underwater, as can salmon and squid.

When generated between two high-elevation biomes, such as mountains and hills, river biomes may pose a fall damage hazard, but are otherwise mostly harmless.

If this biome is used to generate a buffet world, it appears as a shallow ocean, of no more than 10 blocks deep, with mostly sand, dirt, clay and gravel floor and infrequent grassy islands that rarely contain oak trees and, more rarely, pumpkins.

Variants

There are two different river biomes.

River

River

Type	Medium/Lush
Rarity	Common
Temperature	0.5
Structures	Disks Vegetation patches
Blocks	Water Grass Block Dirt Clay Sand Gravel Sugar cane Seagrass

The standard river variant. Salmon and squid may spawn here. This is the third most common biome in the game, only behind Plains and Forest.

Mob	Spawn chance	Group size
Water creature category
Squid	2⁄2	1–4
Ambient category
Bat	10⁄10	8
Hostile category
Spider	100⁄615	4
Zombie	95⁄615	4
Drowned	100⁄615	1
Zombie Villager	5⁄615	1
Skeleton	100⁄615	4
Creeper	100⁄615	4
Slime	100⁄615	4
Enderman	10⁄615	1–4
Witch	5⁄615	1
Water ambient category
Salmon	5⁄5	1–5

In Bedrock Edition:

Mob	Spawn chance	Group size
Water category
Salmon	16⁄16	3–5
Passive category
Squid	8⁄8	2–4
Hostile category
Drowned	5⁄5	2–4

Frozen River

Frozen River

Type	Snowy
Rarity	Uncommon
Temperature	0.0
Blocks	Ice Water Grass Block Dirt Clay Sand Gravel

Frozen Rivers replace regular rivers, and generate only within snowy tundra biomes. As the name implies, the top layer of water is entirely frozen, though below the ice is the usual sand, gravel, and clay, though seagrass does not generate on the riverbed. While sugar cane can generate alongside a frozen riverbank, it quickly uproots itself after generation due to the water being frozen.

In Bedrock Edition, along with salmon and drowned, strays, rabbits, and polar bears can spawn in frozen rivers. No other hostile mobs can spawn, even underground.

Frozen rivers can cut through snowy tundra only, not its variants; a river that separates the snowy tundra from any other biome is only partially frozen.

In Java Edition, frozen rivers use the same mob spawning chances as rivers for water and ambient categories. As for the others:

Mob	Spawn chance	Group size
Hostile category
Spider	100⁄516	4
Zombie	95⁄516	4
Drowned	1⁄516	1
Zombie Villager	5⁄516	1
Skeleton	100⁄516	4
Creeper	100⁄516	4
Slime	100⁄516	4
Enderman	10⁄516	1–4
Witch	5⁄516	1

In Bedrock Edition, frozen rivers use the same mob spawning chances as rivers for water categories. As for the others:

Mob	Spawn chance	Group size
Hostile category
Drowned	5⁄125	2–4
Stray	96⁄125	1–2
Skeleton	24⁄125	1–2
Passive category
Squid	8⁄13	2–4
Rabbit	4⁄13	2–3
Polar Bear	1⁄13	1–2

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Translation key
River	river	biome.minecraft.river
Frozen River	frozen_river	biome.minecraft.frozen_river

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID
[No displayed name]	river	7
[No displayed name]	frozen_river	11

History

Java Edition Beta
August 18, 2011					Notch tweeted a screenshot of a revamped river biome.
1.8		Pre-release			Added rivers. Previously, were generated as part of the terrain generation algorithm.
Java Edition
1.13		18w16a			Renamed FrozenRiver to Frozen River.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.1.0					Added biomes, including rivers.
0.13.0		build 1			Added rabbits, which can spawn in frozen rivers.
0.15.0		build 1			Added strays, which spawn in frozen river biomes.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		alpha 0.17.0.1			Added polar bears, which can spawn in frozen rivers.
Bedrock Edition
1.4.0		beta 1.2.13.8			Added drowned, which spawn in river biomes.
		beta 1.2.14.2			Added salmon, which spawn in rivers.
					Rivers now generate with seagrass.
1.13.0		beta 1.13.0.9			Squid can now spawn in rivers.

Trivia

• Lakes can technically still generate in the waters of rivers and frozen rivers, when either are used as buffet worlds. This can be more clearly seen in frozen river worlds, as holes in the ice.
• Regular rivers can still generate cutting through frozen rivers.
• Both types of rivers override ravines at or close to the surface level, causing the ravine to be abruptly cut off by a wall of stone. However, if the ravine is long enough, it may continue on the other side of the river.
  • Oddly, ravines can generate underground in river biomes without being cut off.

Gallery

• 

  The first image of a river released by Notch.

• 

  A river near two forests.

• 

  A narrow river.

• 

  A frozen river in a cold biome.

• 

  A river separating a desert and a forest.

• 

  Rivers splitting and cutting through a taiga.

• 

  A buffet river world.

• 

  Another buffet frozen river world. Note the "lake" in the distance.

• 

  A river that generated through a swamp. Note the differing water coloring.

See also

• Beach
• Ocean

Biomes

View at: Template:Biomes/content [edit]