The 5 best Minecraft city building ideas, concepts and designs

For even the most ambitious of Minecraft’s players, building your own city from the ground up and populating it with villagers can be incredibly difficult. From gathering all of the necessary blocks and construction materials to adding creative districts to the city, a lot of planning goes into putting together an aesthetically pleasing and residentially functional city by yourself. The following city building ideas can give you some direction as to what your city and its villagers might need.

Minecraft city center

Minecraft villagers will gather at the center of town at noon each day, or when prompted by the ringing of the nearest bell. The bell itself decides where these villagers consider the center of town to be, meaning that they’ll gather wherever you put one down. As this spot is likely to be very high-traffic, it would only be fitting to spruce this spot up.

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Try building a town square around the area where you plan to place the bell. This town square can be as simple as an open-concept plot of land carved from dirt paths, or an elaborate stone brick courtyard. Some type of centerpiece, such as a stage or fountain, can draw attention to it as the heart of the city.

Minecraft city housing

Once you introduce villagers to your city, you’ll need to build them someplace to stay. A villager house can be as simple as a few walls, a door, and a bed to sleep in. While practical, this simplistic design often leaves a lot to be desired from a creative point of view.

When building city housing, rather than assembling boxes that can be lived in, try to build homes that look and feel lived in. This can easily be done with the inclusion — or creation — of pieces of furniture. Try adding a kitchen or more elaborate bedroom designs to the rooms of these houses.

Minecraft city farms

If you plan to expand your city, you’ll need enough food to sustain and grow your villager population. Having a farm within the city limits can help to grow wheat, carrots, and potatoes that you can offer to your villagers. If a villager in your city is unemployed, placing a compost bin near the farm can turn them into a farmer, allowing them to harvest and distribute these crops for you.

When growing these crops, be sure to irrigate your farmland with a block of water, which can reach every farm block within a distance of four blocks in all directions. Also, plants grow quicker when planted next to other crop types, so rotating your seeds as you plant them can produce as much food as possible. You can try incorporating other garden designs to this farm as well.

Minecraft city market

Once you have these adult villagers in your city, it can be beneficial to give them jobs by placing some job blocks near their roaming paths. For example, items like brewing stands, smokers, cartography tables, and fletching tables can turn these villagers into clerics, butchers, cartographers, and fletchers respectively. These villagers can be traded with, providing you with easy access to arrows, potions, meat, and expanded maps.

The land around these job blocks can be built into a more elaborate marketplace. By adding tents and market stalls, these villagers’ store inventories can take the shape of more elaborate shops. This can give your city the feeling of being a bustling commerce hub for your Minecraft world.

Minecraft city park

Though entirely cosmetic, leaving room in your city for a park can add a bit of beauty to an otherwise urban space. This park can and should be heavy on plant life and foliage. Different types of trees, flowers, and bushes can look pleasing, and adding benches or other seating areas using stair blocks can give your villagers a place to appreciate them.