Minecraft World Types: Flat, Large Biomes, Amplified and Custom (level-type)

 

    Not every server wants the standard overworld. A creative or minigame server often runs on a flat world; a survival server might want large biomes or the dramatic terrain of amplified; and with a little JSON you can build a custom superflat preset with exactly the block layers you choose. All of this comes down to one server.properties option — level-type — plus generator-settings for the custom cases. This guide covers each world type, how to set it on your gamever Minecraft (Java) server, and the one rule that trips everyone up: changing the world type only affects newly generated chunks.

 

Where the world type lives

 

    Most of the day-to-day world options — spawn protection, view distance, mob toggles and the Seed — sit on the Settings → World Settings sub-tab (see world settings). The world type itself is the level-type line in server.properties, which you edit directly in the panel File Manager:

 

1. Stop the server (so your edit isn't overwritten on shutdown).
2. Open the File Manager and the /home/ directory.
3. Open server.properties and find the level-type line.
4. Change the value (see the table below), Save, and Start the server.

 

 

The built-in world types

 

    Minecraft 1.19 (snapshot 22w11a) moved level-type to namespaced world-preset IDs. The minecraft: prefix can be omitted, so both minecraft:flat and flat work.

 

level-type value	What it generates
minecraft:normal	Standard world with hills, valleys, water and the usual terrain. This is the default.
minecraft:flat	A flat, featureless world (superflat). Can be customised with generator-settings.
minecraft:large_biomes	The same as normal, but every biome is larger.
minecraft:amplified	The same as normal, but with a much greater world-generation height — tall, dramatic terrain.
minecraft:single_biome_surface	A world made of a single biome. Can also be customised with generator-settings.

 

    So for a plain flat world, set:

 

level-type=minecraft:flat

 

Setting the seed

 

    The seed is a separate option, level-seed, and it is exposed as the Seed field on the World Settings sub-tab. Leave it blank for a random world, or enter a value for a specific, reproducible one. As with the world type, the seed only shapes a newly generated world.

 

level-seed=

 

Custom superflat with generator-settings

 

    The generator-settings option customises how a world is generated; what it accepts depends on your level-type. Its default is an empty object, {}. For level-type=minecraft:flat, it takes a JSON object describing your superflat world:

 

• biome — the biome ID for the whole world, e.g. "minecraft:plains".
• layers — an array of layer objects, listed from the bottom up. Each layer has a block (block ID) and a height (how many of that block to stack).

 

    For example, the classic flat preset — one layer of bedrock, two of dirt, one of grass, on a plains biome — is:

 

generator-settings={"biome":"minecraft:plains","layers":[{"block":"minecraft:bedrock","height":1},{"block":"minecraft:dirt","height":2},{"block":"minecraft:grass_block","height":1}]}

 

    Edit this on the same server.properties line in the File Manager, alongside level-type=minecraft:flat. Keep it on a single line — it's one JSON string.

 

Note on older versions: before the JSON form, superflat presets used a compact preset-code string (a comma-separated list of blocks with a Number*ID repeat syntax and a biome after a semicolon). If you're following an old guide, prefer the modern JSON object shown above on a current server.

 

Changing the world type on an existing server

 

    This is the part people miss: level-type and generator-settings only affect chunks that haven't been generated yet. Changing the value does not reshape terrain your players have already explored — you'll just get a seam where the new type begins at the edge of the explored area.

 

    To genuinely switch the whole world to a new type, generate a fresh world:

 

1. Back up first — download the world/ folder over FTP, or take a snapshot from the Backups tab. This is irreversible.
2. Set your new level-type (and generator-settings/Seed) while the server is stopped.
3. Reset the world so a brand-new world generates on the next start.

 

    If you only want to test a world type before committing, spin one up on a throwaway server or a snapshot server first.

 

Additional Tips

 

• Stop the server before editing server.properties — a running server can overwrite your change on shutdown.
• Flat worlds are great for creative and minigame servers — no terrain to fight, instant building room.
• Omit the namespace if you like — flat behaves the same as minecraft:flat; the newer namespaced form is just explicit.
• Keep generator-settings as one line of valid JSON. A broken object falls back to default generation — if your flat preset looks wrong, re-check the JSON.
• Changing the type needs a fresh world to take full effect — back up, then reset.
• Switching to a modded server type is a different setting from level-type — one picks the server software, the other the world shape.

 

Conclusion

 

    Your Minecraft world's shape is one line away. level-type gives you normal, flat, large_biomes, amplified or a single_biome_surface world, and generator-settings lets you hand-build a custom superflat preset block-by-block in JSON. Edit both in server.properties through the panel File Manager, set your Seed on the World Settings sub-tab, and remember the golden rule: a new world type means a fresh world, so back up first.

 

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