How to Create a Flat World on Your Minecraft Server

A flat world, also known as a superflat world, consists of fixed horizontal layers without the usual landscape of mountains and valleys. This makes this world type suitable for large building projects, redstone contraptions, minigames and survival challenges. In this guide, we explain how to create a flat world, customize its block layers and return to a normal world on your Minecraft server.

Creating a flat Minecraft world

Note Flat-world settings are only applied when a new world is created. Your existing world will not automatically become flat. Create a backup before removing a world folder.

1. Log in to the game panel and go to your Minecraft server.
2. Stop the Minecraft server if it is still running.
3. Open the Files page and click the server.properties file.
4. Find the lines beginning with level-type= and generator-settings=. Change them to:

level-type=flat
generator-settings={}

5. Save the changes.
6. Return to the Files page.

Tip Would you like to keep the existing world without removing it? Change level-name=world to something such as level-name=world_flat. The server will then create a separate world folder. You can return to the old world later by restoring the original value after level-name=.

7. Remove the current world folder. The name of this folder is set after level-name= in server.properties and is world by default.
8. Start the Minecraft server using the green start button. A new flat world will automatically be created during startup.

Note Only the Overworld becomes flat. The Nether and End continue to use their normal world generation.

Customizing the flat world

The generator-settings= property determines which block layers make up the flat world and which biome is used. You must configure these settings before the world is created.

1. Stop the Minecraft server.
2. Create a backup of any existing flat world if you want to keep it.
3. Open the server.properties file again from the Files page.
4. Make sure level-type=flat is configured.
5. Replace the generator-settings={} line with a custom configuration, for example:

generator-settings={"biome":"minecraft:plains","layers":[{"block":"minecraft:bedrock","height":1},{"block":"minecraft:stone","height":60},{"block":"minecraft:dirt","height":3},{"block":"minecraft:grass_block","height":1}]}

From bottom to top, this example creates a world with one layer of bedrock, sixty layers of stone, three layers of dirt and one layer of grass blocks.

6. Would you like to prevent villages and other structures from generating? Also change:

generate-structures=false

7. Save the changes.
8. Remove the current world folder or enter a new, unused folder name after level-name=.
9. Start the Minecraft server to generate the customized flat world.

Disabling the flat world

To use a normal world again, you must generate a new normal world or switch back to a world you preserved earlier.

1. Stop the Minecraft server.
2. Create a backup of the flat world if you want to keep it.
3. Open the server.properties file through Files.
4. Change the settings to:

level-type=normal
generator-settings={}

5. Save the changes.
6. Remove the flat world folder to generate a new normal world. Did you preserve the original world under a different folder name? Enter that name after level-name= and do not remove its folder.
7. Start the Minecraft server using the green start button.

Note Changing only level-type= does not convert an existing flat world into a normal world. The server continues loading the existing world until you configure a new folder name, remove the flat world or restore a previous world.