Far Lands

File:Far Lands and Further Map.png

Map of Far Lands as far as the 1024-bit limit. Obviously not to scale. Click to see full-size image.

Prior to Minecraft Beta 1.8, the Far Lands was an area generated at the calculated end of Minecraft maps. The far lands appear at (x: ±12550821; z: ±12550821). This bug is generated from the breakage and mathematical limitation of Minecraft's noise and terrain generation, which starts to calculate impossible numbers, even exceeding negative integers and sometimes "infinite" number.

File:Minecraft far lands.png

Old far lands generation.

Technical

Minecraft relies on the client's computing capabilities to generate random numbers to randomize terrain generation, and then smoothen by copying the same numbers, and then scaling them down each by from the last by a factor of 2, after the initial calculation, factors and offsets are included into the equation to generate seamless but randomized biomes and terrains. This however depends on the technical capabilities on the computer Minecraft is running, when the computer is simply not capable of calculating the aforementioned equation, an Integer overflow would occur. The noise generator that draws Minecraft's height map increases by 171.103 for every block, causing an integer overflow at approximately ±12550824 (sometimes ±12550821.) Multiplying the aforementioned numbers results in the 32-bit signed integer max value, which when overflowed, results in an extreme noise seed.

Although 64-bit machine can handle terrain generation in the Far lands much better, overflowed results would be "clamped", i.e. set to the minimum or the maximum value in the representable range, rather than wrapped around. This is the reason why 64-bit Far lands are far less chaotic than 32-bit Far lands, although by using some modifications to how Java variables interact with integer overflow and to some extent, unclamping the overflow, the latter result would be game breaking, and may cause a crash.

Overview

Chunks are generated past 30,000,000 X/Z, but have no proper function and contain non-solid blocks. As a result, when a Player attempts to walk on the blocks in these chunks, they will fall into The Void and die. In the period between Indev to the Halloween Update, they would just become unable to move without editing root game files. Attempting to do so will result in a player's map crashing accompanied with the error message: "Illegal position." It is also notable that a player can not teleport over this distance either, although there is a bug allowing them to glitch through the barrier with an Ender Pearl. 

As a player travels further and further away from the 0,0 point, the game reacts differently. At extreme distances, screen shaking can occur. This is due to floating-point precision errors.

As of Beta 1.8 and above, a player can no longer go to the far lands without hacks or mods, and it may take very long amounts of non-stop walking to reach the far lands. The far lands are referred to as the stripe lands in the Pocket Edition.

Far Lands can formerly be found in Bedrock Edition, though getting there without commands was impossible. For more information, see Distance effects in Bedrock Edition. The Bedrock Edition Far Lands were removed in version 1.17.30.

Notable Occurrences

Markers

• First livestream: x/z ± 292,202
• Episode 470 of April 8, 2015: x/z ± 2,097,152 

Redstone Resize

• Very small Redstone: x/z ± 4,194,304
• Large Redstone: x/z ± 8,388,608
• Huge Redstone: x/z ± 16,777,216

Piston Arm Bug

• Wide Arm: x/z ± 8,388,608
• No arm: x/z ± 16,777,216

Particles Bug

• Only on Corners: x/z ± 8,388,608
• Only on Certain Corners: x/z ± 16,777,216

Cacti, Cakes, and Tripwires bugs

• Error: x/z ± 16,777,216

Glitches

• Cauldrons x/z ± 16,777,216
• Enchantment Table x/z ± (Unknown coordinates)
• Paintings and End Portal x/z ± (Unknown coordinates; Very early in the far lands)
• Pressure Plates (Unknown coordinates)
• Bed (Unknown coordinates)

Reaching the Far Lands

It takes approximately 4 weeks and 6 days of continuous walking to reach the far lands, but one can alternatively teleport there. The starting edge of the far lands is at (x: 12550821, y: 64, z: 12550821). The teleportation command would be typed as /tp [PlayerName] 12550821 64 12550821

Farther Lands

The farther lands is a variation of the far lands that generates once a player reaches deep into the far lands (around the vicinity of 1,004,065,811 blocks). This area generates about 80 times farther away than the far lands. Features within the farther lands appear more stretched out and smoother than the regular far lands.

Trivia

• Many objects/blocks become corrupted in the far lands.
• In console edition, the far lands don't exist, as the world is a much smaller size in this version.
• One of the various possible title Splash Texts is "Check Out The Far Lands!"
  • This text can appear in the console version, despite being unreachable.

• There is a chance that a player may stumble into a 'bad' chunk that has corrupt and unreadable data, and that may cause the game to crash.
• It's now possible to travel to the far lands in Minecraft Pocket Edition, but a player has to fly in order to get there.
  • When traveling farther distances, chunks aren't stable and tend to 'fly' and 'shake.'
  • It's impossible to walk on the blocks on the edge of the far lands. If done, a Player will fall to their death.
• In 1.7.2 and onwards, there is an invisible wall of bedrock.
  • Occasionally, a player may see a Minecart with Chest past the barrier. However, it will fall after a few minutes since it was spawned.
• In Minecraft 1.8, there is now a world border.
  • The world generates about 16 blocks past the world border. However, these blocks cannot be broken or placed on by a player. A player can still walk on them and they can still be destroyed by TNT or anything similar. A player cannot move past the edge of the world as there is an invisible wall. Neither can he/she teleport past this.
• The far lands will not appear in The End.
• The end of the Minecraft playing range is X/Z= 2,147,483,439 for 32-bit computers, where Minecraft will crash beyond. For further information, refer to YouTube.
  • For 64-bit computers, the range can span further to X/Z=34,359,738,208. For further information, refer to YouTube.
• A YouTuber named kurtjmac has been walking to the far lands ever since March 2011 in a series called "Far Lands or Bust!".
  • At the moment, he has achieved 2,266,779 blocks (As of FLoB-ATHON Weekend of 2015).
  • He does this for a fundraiser called Child's Play Charity, and has obtained $335K from his viewers and subscribers.
• On June 19th, 2020 a YouTuber by the name of KilloCrazyMan became the first person to legitimately reach the far lands in survival mode. His whole journey was streamed live on his YouTube channel.
  • Near the last few hours of his journey, a popular minecraft YouTuber AntVenom made a video on his journey, thanks to him the last livestream of the journey gained huge popularity, attracting other YouTubers and even Notch, the creator of Minecraft.
• As of the Better Together Update beta, it is possible to reach the far lands on consoles via the usual /tp command. However, beyond the x/z ±12,550,821 border, there is just ocean, which may vary in colour for different biomes, with the odd structure. Shortly before this border, however, the world looks normal, except movements are stuttery, blocks are non-collidable and some items may appear glitched, i.e. flowers.
• The far lands appear in Minecraft Story Mode Season 1 even though it was made after the far lands were taken out of the game.
• The far lands are mentioned in Super Smash Bros Ultimate in the title of Steve’s classic mode route “Journey to the far lands”

Gallery

File:2C34ED46-1910-4BDF-8152-E635D63B1286.png

Click for full Far Lands gallery.