Sand

Transparent	No
Luminance	0
Blast resistance	2.5
Tool
Renewable	Yes‌^{[upcoming: JE 1.14 & BE 1.10]}
Stackable	Yes (64)
Flammable	No
Experience	Smelted: 0.1
Drops	Itself
Data values	Sand dec: 12⁰ hex: C⁰ bin: 1100⁰ Red Sand dec: 12¹ hex: C¹ bin: 1100¹
Name	See § Data values

This article is about sand in the Overworld. For sand in the Nether, see Soul Sand.

	“	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.

Obtaining[edit]

Sand can be broken without tools, but a shovel is the fastest method of obtaining it.

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. For more information, see Haste § Instant mining.

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.

Sand is also used to cover up buried treasure chests depending on where the chest generates in. (In this case, sand is used to cover up buried treasure chests that generate in beaches and ocean floors that are composed of sand, but in some cases stone or sandstone might be used instead). ‌^{[Java and Bedrock editions only]}

Red sand generates naturally in badlands biomes and variants.

Both types of 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.

Trading[edit]

8 sand and 4 red sand is sold by the wandering trader for one emerald.‌^{[upcoming: JE 1.14 & BE 1.11.0]}

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, the mob or player buried in it will continuously receive suffocation damage. 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 an item. If it falls onto a cobweb, it will fall slowly until it has gone through completely; if it touches ground while still inside the cobweb, it will turn into an item.

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.^{[until JE 1.14]}

Crafting ingredient[edit]

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Concrete Powder	Matching Dye + Sand + Gravel	88888888888888888888
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 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, sugar canes and bamboo‌^{[BE & PS4 only]}‌^{[upcoming: JE 1.14]}.

Data values[edit]

ID[edit]

Java Edition:

Block	Name ID
Sand	`sand`
Red Sand	`red_sand`

Bedrock Edition:

Block	Name ID	Numeric ID
Sand	`sand`	12

Block data[edit]

falling_block entity[edit]

Falling Block

Internal ID	JE: 21 BE: 66
Network ID	JE: 70
Entity ID	falling_block

Dynamic block entity data
- Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
- TileEntityData: Optional. The tags of the block entity for this block.
- BlockState: The falling block represented by this entity.
  - Name: The name ID of the block.
  - Properties: Optional. The block states of the block.
    - Name: The block state name and its value.
- 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]

Java Edition Classic
May 21, 2009				Notch shows interest in adding sand.
May 23, 2009				Notch says he accomplished adding sand.
0.0.14a				Added sand. It behaves similarly to gravel, which was also added during this update.
				Sand blocks will only appear naturally in one block-thick beaches (usually by water or in the middle of a landscape). These beaches are always at and below ocean level.
				Rather than falling by turning into a falling block entity, sand will now instantly appear at the lowest point it can go when placed above an air block, without any sort of falling animation. This behavior lasted until the Seecret Friday 1 update, in Infdev.
				A glitch occurring at this time allows players to raise the height of a fluid block by placing sand over it. The sand will stay suspended in mid-air until it is broken. When broken, a fluid block corresponding to the type below the sand will appear where the block was. The suspended fluid block will remain immobile until a block was placed next to it, causing a flood.
				Map editors can be used to create floating sand, although the server will crash, if the sand was affected from its state.
Java Edition Indev
0.31			2010-01-11-1	Islands will now have more sand.
0.31			2010-01-29	Sand is now used to craft TNT.
Java Edition Infdev
Infdev			2010-02-27	Sand has now been removed during map tests.^[2]
			2010-04-13	Sand has now been re-added.
			2010-06-18	Sand will now fall realistically.
			2010-06-18	Sand can now be destroyed by falling onto a non-solid object, not dropping as item. This was fixed in a later update.^[when?]
Java Edition Beta
1.2				FallingSand entities will now behave better in multiplayer.
1.2				Sand can now be used to craft sandstone.
1.3				Sand will now generate with sandstone under it.
1.8			?	Due to changes in the terrain generator, sand will now no longer appear in beaches.
1.8			?	Sand will now generate 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.
Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 6	Sand texture has now been slightly changed.
1.1			12w01a	Sand will now appear in beaches again, which have been re-added as a biome, rather than a generated structure.
1.3.1			12w22a	Inventory sprites for blocks have now been flipped from left to right, changing to .
1.4.2			12w38a	Sand will now have new sounds when being walked on.
1.7.2			13w39a	Added red sand.
1.8			14w27b	Sand and red sand's textures will 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	Falling dust particles for unsupported sand has now been added.
1.12			17w06a	Sand can now be used to craft concrete powder.
1.13			17w47a	The different block states for the `sand` ID have been split up into their own IDs.
			17w47a	Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 12.
			18w08b	Sand will now generate on the floors of warm and lukewarm ocean biomes.
			18w09a	Sand can now generate in underwater ruins.
Upcoming Java Edition
1.14			18w43a	Sand and red sand's textures have now been changed.
			18w44a	Sand's texture has now been changed, once again.
			18w47a	Red sand's texture has now been changed, once again.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.1.0				Added sand.
0.3.0				Sand can now be used to craft sandstone.
0.4.0				Sand can now be used to craft TNT.
0.6.0				Sand is now affected by gravity.
0.8.0			build 8	Falling sand will now drop a resource when landing on a non-solid block.
0.9.0			build 1	Added red sand.
0.10.0			build 1	Falling dust particles for unsupported sand have now been added.
0.14.0			build 1	Red sand can now be used to craft red sandstone.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0			alpha 0.17.0.1	Sand can now be found inside desert temple chests.^[verify]
1.1.0			alpha 1.1.0.0	Sand can now be used to craft concrete powder.
Bedrock Edition
1.4.0			beta 1.2.14.2	Sand will now generate on the floors of warm and lukewarm ocean biomes.
			beta 1.2.14.2	Sand will now sometimes generate on top of buried treasure chests in beaches.
			beta 1.2.20.1	Sand can now generate in some warm underwater ruins.
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3	Sand and red sand's textures have now been changed.
Upcoming Bedrock Edition
1.11.0			beta 1.11.0.4	Sand and red sand can now be bought from wandering traders.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	Added sand.
TU14	CU1	1.04	Patch 1	The sound made when mining sand has now been changed.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3	Added red sand.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0				Added sand.

Issues[edit]

Issues relating to "Sand" or "Red Sand" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia[edit]

If a block of sand has snow on it and is made to fall, the snow is destroyed‌^{[Java Edition only]} and will not drop snowballs.
Since 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 or lava, as it will when in air.
If a player is standing on a stack of sand or gravel, and the stack falls onto 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.
Since falling_block is considered an entity, blocks of sand without supports may disappear for a split second and a falling_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.