How to find an Ancient City in Minecraft

Tyler Constable
An image of an Ancient City in Minecraft.

Exploring an Ancient City in Minecraft can be extremely exciting but they’re not the easiest to locate, so here’s exactly how to find one in the game.

There’s a lot for players to do in Minecraft’s sandbox world. Whether you’re building houses, taming pets like cats and Llamas, or simply exploring the different biomes, there’s an activity for everyone to enjoy in the game.

The unique seeds that are available to explore provide players with exciting environments to traverse but one of the most interesting things you can find in Minecraft is an Ancient City. These mysterious locations are unlike any other structures in the game, and players who dare to explore them fully will be rewarded with chests that contain unique rewards unavailable anywhere else.

Before you can traverse an Ancient City, however, you’ll first need to find one and they can be tricky to locate, so here’s everything you need to know about how to find the elusive structures.

An image of an Ancient City in Minecraft.
An Ancient City is a dark and elusive environment in Minecraft.

How to find an Ancient City in Minecraft

There are no Ancient City maps for players to use in Minecraft, so it does make finding the structures more difficult as they are extremely rare but there are a handful of steps you can take to best prepare for finding the locations:

  1. Ancient Cities will generally appear below Y-40 – Y-50 and they are found in the Deep Dark Biome so you’ll have to dig your way down first.
  2. Find a location in the Overworld and start digging strategically downwards until you reach the Deep Dark Biome.
  3. Once you start seeing Sculk Blocks and other Sculk items you’ll have reached the Biome, and with some luck, you may find an Ancient City there!

Tips for finding an Ancient City

While finding an Ancient City does ultimately come down to luck in Minecraft, you’ll still want to be prepared so below we’ve got some additional tips to keep in mind when you’re searching:

  1. Make sure you’ve got plenty of resources on hand for exploring including plenty of food, tools, water, and armor.
  2. If you do find an Ancient City there’s a chance you could fall through its roof so have some Elyra on hand to avoid a painful fall.
  3. The cities are also extremely dark so stocking your inventory with a Potion of Night Vision and torches will help you navigate the environment.

That’s everything you need to know about how to find an Ancient City in Minecraft! For more content on the game, check out our guides below:

How to breed Camels in Minecraft & can you tame them? | How to make a Brush | Sniffer: How to breed & where to find it | What are Torchflowers in Minecraft? | All Armor Trims & recipes in Minecraft | What are Trail Ruins in Minecraft? | Best Minecraft Bedrock shaders & how to install them | All Minecraft Dyes: How to craft & uses | Best Minecraft house ideas | Minecraft Axolotl: How to tame, breed, & feed | All  | How to make paper & books in Minecraft | How to craft Minecraft Smithing Table

About The Author

Tyler is Dexerto's Gaming Evergreen Specialist. He loves many games but is particularly fond of JRPGs and The Last of Us. When he's not writing about or playing video games, he's probably watching Doctor Who or reading a book. You can contact him at tyler.constable@dexerto.com