With every world spawned in a game of Minecraft going on indefinitely and consisting of an ever-growing amount of terrains and biomes, keeping track of where things are in the world you explore is so vital to a player.
Maps are one of the most useful items in-game for keeping track of where things are and what the world around you looks like. They are reasonably easy to craft, so there’s no excuse as to why you wouldn’t leave your house or cave without one. Here’s how to make a map in Minecraft, and how to use it most effectively.
How do you make a map in Minecraft?
Maps are split up into two different items in Minecraft: those crafted with a compass, and those that aren’t, with the chief difference between the two being the absence of any location markers on those crafted without a compass.
Maps can be found naturally in the world in shipwreck, stronghold, and village chests, however, the most common way of acquiring them is through cutting down sugar cane to make paper. Three sugar cane minerals in a line on a crafting table will give a player three paper, with eight or nine paper being required to make an empty map.
The recipe for a compass in the game is one redstone and four iron ingots surrounding it, a small extra cost for an item with so much more use.
How to use a map in Minecraft?
When first crafted a map will appear blank in a player’s inventory. Maps in Minecraft are designed from a top-down perspective, with North pointing to the top of the item. A map doesn’t center on the player but does show where a player is and what direction they are facing and moving with a white marker.
To use the item in-game, a player must have a map in their hands and be looking at it in their active slot. The map will begin drawing out the landscape around the player when it is being used in real-time.
