Sand
Transparency |
No |
---|---|
Luminance |
No |
Blast resistance |
2.5 |
Tool | |
Renewable |
No |
Stackable |
Yes (64) |
Flammable |
No |
Experience |
Smelted: 0.1 |
Drops |
Itself |
Data values |
|
Name |
See Data values |
![]() |
“ | Sand spawns naturally in four-block-deep layers in various parts of most biomes of the Overworld. You'll find it everywhere from forests, to plains, to tundra and swamps. In Mesa biomes, you'll find a variant of sand that's red and acts exactly like regular sand except that you can't use it to make concrete. Actually, that sounds like a bug. Maybe we should fix that. | „ |
—Duncan Geere[1] |
Sand is a block affected by gravity.
Red sand is a variation of sand, the only differences being its color and that it cannot be used to craft concrete powder.
Contents
Obtaining[edit]
Sand can be broken without tools, but a shovel is the fastest.
Block | Sand | |
---|---|---|
Hardness | 0.5 | |
Tool | ||
Breaking time[note 1] | ||
Hand | 0.75 | |
Wooden | 0.4 | |
Stone | 0.2 | |
Iron | 0.15 | |
Diamond | 0.1 | |
Golden | 0.1 |
- ↑ Times are for unenchanted tools in seconds.
Natural generation[edit]
Sand generates naturally in many biomes of the Overworld, notably deserts, beaches, and rivers, generally in four-block-deep layers supported by stone and sandstone.
Red sand generates naturally in mesa biomes and variants.
Sand can spawn floating in the air. The floating cluster of sand will fall when one of the sand blocks receives an update (when a block is placed near it or when a block near it is broken).
Sand can be found in 59.0% of desert temple chests in stacks of 1–8.
Usage[edit]
Sand, if there is no block below it, will fall until it lands on the next available block. When sand is being affected by gravity and falling, it exhibits a smooth falling animation.
If falling sand lands on a mob or the player and covers their head, it will suffocate them until they destroy the block, move out, or die. If falling sand lands in the space occupied by a non-solid block, (such as torches, slabs, rails, or redstone), it will drop and turn into a sand item. If it falls onto a cobweb it will slowly fall until it has gone through it completely, or until it touches the ground, at which point it will turn into a resource block.
Sand can be placed on a non-solid block without falling.
If a sand entity falls on a fence post, it does not turn into a solid block. Instead, it stays as an entity on top of that fence post.
Crafting ingredient[edit]
Name | Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
---|---|---|
Concrete Powder | Matching Dye + Sand + Gravel |
|
Sandstone or Red Sandstone |
Sand or Red Sand |
|
TNT | Gunpowder + Sand or Red Sand |
Smelting ingredient[edit]
Ingredients | Smelting recipe |
---|---|
Sand or Red Sand + Any fuel |
Construction[edit]
Sand can be used in the construction of airlocks and the creation of mob suffocation traps. Being affected by gravity, it can be quickly and easily removed from ground level.
Farms[edit]
Sand and red sand can be used for farming cactus and sugar canes.
Data values[edit]
Sand has the ID name minecraft:sand
and is further defined by its block data or block state.[until 1.13]
Name | ID Name |
---|---|
Sand | sand
|
Red Sand | red_sand
|
Block data[edit]
- See also: Data values
DV | Description | |
---|---|---|
0 | Sand | |
1 | Red sand |
Block state[edit]
- See also: Block states
Name | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
variant[until 1.13] | sand | Sand |
red_sand | Red Sand |
falling_block entity[edit]
- See also: Chunk format § Dynamic tiles and Tutorials/Falling blocks
Dynamic block entity data- Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
-
Tile(deprecated): The Block ID. Not limited to only sand, gravel, concrete powder, dragon eggs, or anvils. Although deprecated, this value is always present. -
TileID: The Block ID, as above, but now supporting the 1-4095 range. Only prior to 1.8. -
Block: The Block ID using the alphabetical ID format: minecraft:stone. Only in and after 1.8. -
TileEntityData: Optional. The tags of the block entity for this block. -
Data: The data value for the block. -
Time: The number of ticks the entity has existed. If set to 0, the moment it ticks to 1, it will vanish if the block at its location has a different ID than the entity's TileID. If the block at its location has the same ID as its TileID when Time ticks from 0 to 1, the block will instead be deleted, and the entity will continue to fall, having overwritten it. When Time goes above 600, or above 100 while the block is below Y=0, the entity is deleted. -
DropItem: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if the block should drop as an item when it breaks. Any block that doesn't have an item form with the same ID as the block won't drop even if this is set. -
HurtEntities: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if the block should hurt entities it falls on. -
FallHurtMax: The maximum number of hitpoints of damage to inflict on entities that intersect this falling_block. For vanilla falling_block, always 40 (× 20).
-
FallHurtAmount: Multiplied by the FallDistance to calculate the amount of damage to inflict. For vanilla falling_block, always 2.
Video[edit]
History[edit]
Classic | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
0.0.14a_01 | ![]() | ||||
Sand blocks only appeared naturally in one block-thick beaches (usually by water or in the middle of a landscape). These beaches were always at and below ocean level. | |||||
Rather than falling by turning into a falling block entity, sand would instantly appear at the lowest point it could go when placed above an air block, without any sort of falling animation, behavior that lasted until the Seecret Friday 1 update, in Infdev. | |||||
A glitch occurring at this time allowed players to raise the height of a fluid block by placing sand over it. The sand would stay suspended in mid-air until it was broken. When broken, a fluid block corresponding to the type below the sand would appear where the block was. The suspended fluid block would remain immobile until a block was placed next to it, causing a flood. | |||||
Map editors could be used to create floating sand, although the server would crash if the sand was affected from its state. | |||||
Indev | |||||
0.31 | January 11, 2010 | Islands have more sand. | |||
January 29, 2010 | Sand is now used to craft TNT. | ||||
Infdev | |||||
February 27, 2010 | Sand was removed during map tests.[2] | ||||
April 13, 2010 | Sand re-added. | ||||
June 18, 2010 | Sand now falls realistically. | ||||
Sand would be destroyed by falling onto a non-solid object, not dropping as item. This was fixed in a later update.[when?] | |||||
Beta | |||||
1.2 | FallingSand entities behave better in SMP. | ||||
Sand can now be used to craft sandstone. | |||||
1.3 | Sand now generates with sandstone under it. | ||||
1.8 | Due to changes in the terrain generator, sand no longer appears in beaches. | ||||
Sand generates anywhere that water does in large, circular patterns, noticeably larger than the similar patterns of clay. These can occur anywhere water does, including in NPC Village farms. | |||||
Official release | |||||
1.0 | Beta 1.9-pre6 | ![]() | |||
1.1 | 12w01a | Sand now appears in beaches again, which have been re-added as a biome rather than a generated structure. | |||
1.4.2 | 12w38a | Sand now has new sounds when being walked on. | |||
1.7.2 | 13w39a | ![]() | |||
1.8 | 14w27b | Sand and red sand's textures now rotate randomly, making beaches and deserts look less uniform. | |||
1.9 | 15w44a | Sand can now be found in desert temple chests. | |||
1.10 | 16w20a | Added falling dust particles for unsupported sand. | |||
1.12 | 17w06a | Sand is now used to craft concrete powder. | |||
Upcoming | |||||
1.13 | 17w47a | The different block states for the sand ID have been split up into their own IDs. | |||
18w08b | Sand now generates on the floors of warm and lukewarm ocean biomes. | ||||
18w09a | Sand can generate in the underwater ruins structures. | ||||
Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
0.1.0 | Added sand. | ||||
0.3.0 | Sand is now used to craft sandstone. | ||||
0.4.0 | Sand is now used to craft TNT. | ||||
0.6.0 | Sand is now affected by gravity. | ||||
0.8.0 | build 8 | Falling sand now drops a resource when landing on a non-solid block. | |||
0.9.0 | build 1 | Added red sand. | |||
0.10.0 | build 1 | Added falling dust particles for unsupported sand. | |||
Pocket Edition | |||||
1.1 | build 1 | Sand is now used to craft concrete powder. | |||
Legacy Console Edition | |||||
TU1 | CU1 | 1.0 | Patch 1 | Added sand. | |
TU14 | 1.04 | Changed sound made when mining sand. | |||
TU31 | CU19 | 1.22 | Patch 3 | Added red sand. |
Issues[edit]
Issues relating to “Sand” or “Red Sand“ are maintained on the issue tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia[edit]
- If a block of sand has snow on it and is made to fall, the snow is destroyed and will not drop snowballs.
- Because falling sand is considered an entity it can be launched in a TNT cannon, similar to an ignited piece of TNT.
- Sand will fall at the same rate when submerged in water as it will when in air.
- If a player is standing on a stack of sand or gravel, and the stack falls on a non-solid block, the player will fall fast enough to take damage or even die.
- Sand will fall through torches without breaking if there is air below the torch.
- Sand and gravel take about 0.45 seconds to fall one meter.
- The sand texture will actually be rotated if a block of sand turns into a FallingSand entity, similar to ignited TNT blocks. This is not the case with gravel.
- Because
falling_block
is an entity, blocks of sand without supports may disappear for a split second and afalling_block
entity is summoned. This is also the case when it's landing, but the entity (not the block) disappears instead before a block is placed.
Gallery[edit]
Floating sand emits falling particles
See also[edit]
- Explained physics of falling blocks.
References[edit]