How To Find End Cities in Minecraft: A Complete Guide
End Cities are among the most rewarding structures in Minecraft, hiding Elytra wings and some of the game's best loot. But reaching them isn't straightforward — they exist in a specific dimension, in a specific region, and finding them requires several steps most players don't fully understand the first time through.
Here's a clear breakdown of exactly how End City hunting works.
What Are End Cities and Why Do They Matter?
End Cities are procedurally generated structures found in Minecraft's End dimension. They appear as tall, purple-and-magenta tower complexes populated by Shulkers — enemies that fire levitating projectiles and guard the loot inside.
What makes End Cities worth the effort:
- Elytra — the only way to fly in survival mode, found in End Ships docked alongside some cities
- Diamond and enchanted iron/diamond gear — often with high-level enchantments
- Shulker shells — used to craft Shulker Boxes, the most efficient storage items in the game
Not every End City has an End Ship, and not every End Ship visit will yield an Elytra — but the structure is the only place in the game where Elytra naturally spawn.
Step 1 — Defeat the Ender Dragon First
End Cities do not generate in the central End island where you first arrive. They only exist in the outer End islands, which are completely inaccessible until after the Ender Dragon is defeated.
Once the Dragon dies, an End Gateway Portal appears near the edge of the central island. This one-block-wide portal teleports you to the outer islands — the region where End Cities actually generate.
🐉 If you haven't defeated the Ender Dragon yet, End City hunting isn't possible. That fight is the required gateway.
Step 2 — Use the End Gateway Portal
The End Gateway Portal is a small, floating obsidian frame with a purple beam shooting upward. To enter it, you can't simply walk through — it requires one of two methods:
- Throw an Ender Pearl directly into the portal to teleport through
- Place a water bucket or use chorus fruit in some scenarios, though Ender Pearls are the most reliable method
Once through, you'll land somewhere on the outer End islands — a scattered archipelago of pale yellow islands floating in the void. This is End City territory.
Step 3 — Navigate the Outer End Islands
The outer islands are not a continuous landmass. They're separated by stretches of void, which makes travel dangerous without the right preparation.
Recommended gear before heading out:
| Item | Why You Need It |
|---|---|
| Ender Pearls | Escape falls, cross gaps |
| Bridging blocks (cobblestone, etc.) | Cross void gaps safely |
| Armor with Feather Falling | Reduce fall damage |
| Food | Sustain health while exploring |
| Sword with Smite or Sharpness | Fight Shulkers efficiently |
End Cities don't appear immediately near your landing point. You'll typically need to travel several hundred to over a thousand blocks outward from the gateway landing zone before encountering one.
Step 4 — Locate an End City
End Cities generate randomly across the outer islands, but they follow Minecraft's chunk-based generation rules. There's no fixed grid — you're looking across a semi-random landscape.
Methods for finding End Cities:
Exploration on Foot (or Bridge-by-Bridge)
The most straightforward method is moving outward in a consistent direction, bridging across void gaps as needed. End Cities are visible from a distance due to their height — the tower structures rise well above the flat island terrain.
Keep moving in one direction rather than spiraling, which wastes time and resources. If an island has no city, keep moving outward.
Using the /locate Command
In Java Edition, the command:
/locate structure minecraft:end_city returns the coordinates of the nearest End City to your current position. This is the fastest method if you're playing with cheats enabled or on a server where commands are permitted.
In Bedrock Edition, the equivalent command is:
/locate structure endcity This doesn't work in pure survival mode without enabling cheats, which flags your world accordingly.
Using a Seed Map Tool
If you know your world seed, third-party tools like Chunkbase's End City Finder can display exact End City coordinates on a map before you explore. These tools work by running the same generation algorithm Minecraft uses, so the results are accurate for the correct game version.
🗺️ You can find your seed using /seed in-game if cheats are on, or by checking the world settings menu (Bedrock) or level.dat file (Java).
What to Expect When You Arrive
End Cities vary in size. Some are compact single towers; others are large multi-tower complexes. An End Ship — a floating boat-shaped structure — docks alongside some (not all) End Cities. The Elytra is found in an item frame inside the End Ship's treasure room, guarded by a Shulker.
Fighting Shulkers effectively means staying mobile — their projectiles cause the Levitation status effect, which can send you floating dangerously high if you're not careful. A shield helps block the projectiles directly.
The Variables That Affect Your Hunt
How long finding an End City actually takes depends on several factors that are specific to your situation:
- Your world seed — some seeds cluster End Cities relatively close to the gateway; others scatter them far out
- Whether cheats are enabled — determines if
/locateis available - Your version (Java vs. Bedrock) — slight differences in command syntax and generation behavior
- Your inventory preparation — running out of bridge blocks mid-void is a common reason players fail to reach cities they're close to
- Whether you're playing solo or on a server — multiplayer servers may have already cleared nearby End Cities of their loot
The gap between knowing where End Cities are and successfully looting one — especially getting the Elytra — often comes down to how well your specific survival setup handles the outer End's hazards.