Tutorials/Units of measure

This tutorial is designed to compare units of measurement in Minecraft to real life units and to compare different units used in Minecraft.

Time

To convert time in Minecraft to time in real life, simply divide by 72 or multiply by 72 to convert time in real life to time in Minecraft.

Time in Minecraft	Time in Real life
1 tick	0.05 seconds, barring lag
1 minute	≈ 0.83 seconds
1 hour (1000 ticks)	= 50 seconds
1 day (24,000 ticks)	= 20 minutes
1 week	≈ 2.33 hours
1 lunar cycle (8 days)	≈ 2.7 hours
1 month	≈ 10 hours
1 year	≈ 5.07 days
1 decade	≈ 50.69 days or 7.22 weeks
1 century	≈ 1.39 years

Amount of items

1 item is the most basic measurement in quantity.

• 1 block = 9 items. Used for resources that can be crafted into storage blocks and back (most kinds of processed minerals, slimeballs, bone meal, melon slices, wheat, dried kelp)
• 1 stack = 64 items = 7 blocks, 1 item. This applies to non-stackable and partially-stackable items as well. e.g. 64 water buckets = 1 stack of water buckets, although they do not technically stack.

One stack of a fully-stackable material (e.g. stone, diamond) will fully occupy one slot in one's inventory.

• 1 full hopper = 5 stacks = 320 items.
• 1 stack of blocks = 9 stacks = 576 items when completely uncrafted.
• 1 full dispenser or dropper = 9 stacks = 576 items.
• Mining capacity of an unenchanted diamond pickaxe = 24 stacks 25 items = 1561 items.
• 1 full chest = 27 slots or 27 stacks = 1,728 items.
• 1 inventory = ⁴⁄₃ or 1.3 full chests = 36 stacks = 2,304 items.
• 1 full double chest = 2 chestfuls = 54 stacks = 3,456 items.
• 1 chestful of shulker boxes = 27 chestfuls = 729 stacks = 46,656 items.
• 1 chunk = 37 chests and 25 stacks = 1024 stacks = 65,536 items.
• 1 stack of chests = 64 chestfuls = 1,728 stacks = 110,592 items.
• 1 chest squared = 1 chestful of chests = 1,728 chestfuls = 46,656 stacks = 2,985,984 items.
• 1 chunk of chests = 65,536 chestfuls = 4,194,304 stacks = 113,246,208 items.
• 1 chest cubed = 1 chestful of chestfuls of chests = 1,728 chestfuls of chests = 46,656 chestfuls = 80,621,568 stacks = 5,159,780,352 items.
• 1 world = ~59.81688255 chests⁵ = ~103,363.57304950 chests⁴ = ~178,612,254.22953818 chests³ = 8,138,020,833.3 chunks of chests = 308,641,975,308.641975308 chests² = 14,062,500,000,000 chunks = 533,333,333,333,333¹⁄₃ chestfuls = 14,400,000,000,000,000 stacks = 921,600,000,000,000,000 items.

More conveniently: 59 chests⁵, 22s3 chests⁴, 15s30 chests³, 6s12 chests², 17s21 chests and 9 stacks 0 items.

• 1 world of chests = 921,600,000,000,000,000 chestsful = 24,883,200,000,000,000,000 stacks = 1,592,524,800,000,000,000,000 items.

Note: 1 chunk is a 16×16×256 piece of a Minecraft map.

Health

Main article: Health

The basic measure of health is one health point (1). One heart (2) is also commonly used when talking about health.

Damage/entity	HP
Chicken	4
Item	5
Instant Damage	6
Diamond Sword	8
Cow	10
Player	20 × 10
Enderman	40 × 20
TNT	65 × 32.5 max
Iron Golem	100 × 50
Ender Dragon	200 × 100
Wither	300 × 150
Player with maximum Health Boost and maximum Absorption	2068 × 1034
/kill	3.4028234663852886E38 × 1.7014117331926E+38 (max value of double 0x7F7FFFFF)

Hunger

Main article: Hunger

Similarly, the basic unit in hunger is a food point—1 ()—displayed as a chicken drumstick.

A full hunger bar (20 ()) contains 20 food points.

Additionally there are another 20 saturation points, which are invisible but are used when preforming actions before hunger, so the maximum value is 40.

Speed

Main article: Player § Movement

Distance

Minecraft's worlds are a voxel grid where each block represents a voxel which is one meter cubed (1 m³) in real life.

Knowing that one block is one meter cubed, we can derive that:

Metric units

Length	Blocks	Pixels
1 kilometer	1000 blocks	16000 pixels
1 hectometer	100 blocks	1600 pixels
1 decameter	10 blocks	160 pixels
1 meter	1 block	16 pixels
1 decimeter	0.1 blocks	1.6 pixels
1 centimeter	0.01 blocks	0.16 pixels
1 millimeter	0.001 blocks	0.016 pixels
6.25 cm	0.0625 blocks	1 pixel
62.5 cm	0.625 blocks	10 pixels
6.25 m	6.25 blocks	100 pixels

Blocks	Volume
1 block	1 m3
1 block	1000 litres

Imperial/U.S customary units

Length	Blocks
1 mile	1,609.344 blocks
1 yard	0.9144 blocks
1 foot	0.3048 blocks
1 inch	0.0254 blocks

Blocks	Length
1 block	0.000621371192 miles
	1.0936133 yards
	3.2808399 feet
	39.3700787 inches

Blocks	Length (approx.)
1 block	≈ 1⁄1,760 miles
	≈ 1 yard
	≈ 3 feet
	≈ 36 inches
1 pixel	1⁄28,160 miles
	0.2 feet
	2.46 inches

Blocks	Volume
1 block	≈ 264 US fluid gallons
	≈ 227 US dry gallons
	≈ 219 Imperial Gallons