Biome

Minecraft Developer Jens:

||"In case you don’t know what a "biome" is, it's a climate zone used in the game to set what kind of surface the ground has (sand? grass?), whether it should rain or snow, what trees grow there, and sometimes also what kind of animals that are allowed to spawn there."||

Biomes are regions in a world with varying geographical features, flora, heights, temperatures, humidity ratings, and sky and foliage colors. Biomes separate every generated world into different environments, such as forests, jungles, deserts, and taigas. Biomes have a temperature value that determines if it snows, rains, or does not have either. The required values are less than 0.15 for snow, 0.15 – 0.95 for rain, or at least 1 for neither. These values can be used to determine the heights that snow generates in different biomes. The temperature also drops 0.0016 (1⁄625) per meter above the default sea level (Y=64), but does not change below sea level. For example, mountains generate snow at Y=95, due to their highland climate, as their temperature value is 0.2. The temperature affects only the transition from rain to snowfall. Dry biomes do not transition to rainy ones under any circumstance. For example, savannas do not experience rain or snow due to their heat.

Biomes are split into 5 categories based on their temperature: snow-covered, cold, temperate/lush, dry/warm, and neutral. They are almost always separated to prevent biomes with huge temperature differences being placed side-by-side (such as a snowy taiga next to a desert), and to allow biomes with similar temperatures to be placed next to each other more often (such as forests and swamps).