Building Blocks: Abandoned Village

Minecraft’s villages are welcoming, friendly, and full of life. Except when they’re not. Every now and then you’ll stumble across a settlement with no inhabitants whatsoever. Well... at least not any that qualify as “living”. These are abandoned villages, and they’re our structure of the month.

Abandoned villages are easily recognised – the houses have no doors, and any torches burnt out long ago. Cobwebs cover holes in the walls and ceilings, and moss grows on the cobble. The glass in the windows is dirty, and stray cats prowl around hunting for any remaining food.

Abandoned villages were first spotted in the Overworld following the Frostburn update in June 2016 – the same release that added polar bears (“frost”) and magma blocks (“burn”). It also added fossils, strays, and husks at the same time. 

You won’t find much left in abandoned villages. My guess is that pillagers looted them of all the good stuff long ago. What you will find, though, are zombie villagers – and quite a lot of them. These poor souls won’t despawn, and they try to stay in shade when possible. That makes them not much of a threat during the daytime – just run out into the sunlight if you stumble across one. But if you come across an abandoned village in the dark, then I cannot guarantee your safety.

Despite the fact that eight billion people live on Earth, there are just as many abandoned settlements here as there are in Minecraft. These places – sometimes known as “ghost towns” – are usually abandoned when the economic activity that supported it has failed or ended (like mining or agriculture), or when people can’t live there any more due to a natural or human-caused disaster (like a flood, war, or nuclear accident).

Image credit: KennyOMG // CC BY-SA 4.0

One of the most famous ghost towns is the city of Pripyat in Ukraine, which had a population of about 50,000 people before it was evacuated in 1986 following the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The population was evacuated due to the radioactivity released during the disaster, and has not returned.

Even more interesting, perhaps, is the city of Plymouth, which is the capital of the territory of Montserrat in the Caribbean. This settlement was home to about 4,000 people until 1995, when a volcano that had been dormant for centuries began to erupt nearby. The population was swiftly evacuated as the town was buried in ash, many relocating to the town of Brades in the north of the territory. No-one has lived in Plymouth since 1997, but it remains the capital of Montserrat – the only capital city in the world with no-one living in it.

There are no volcanoes in Minecraft, and certainly no nuclear power plants. So it remains a mystery why some villages in the Overworld are abandoned. If you’ve got any theories, then we’d love to hear them!