Terracotta is a smooth, colorful building block that gives Minecraft builds a warm, earthy look. It comes in plain, stained and glazed versions, and the glazed terracotta patterns are some of the most popular decoration blocks in the game. Making terracotta is easy once you know the trick: you smelt clay blocks, not clay balls. This guide explains how to make terracotta in Minecraft, how to get it in every color, where to find it naturally in badlands, how glazed terracotta works, and what to build with it in Java and Bedrock Edition.
How to make terracotta in Minecraft
Smelt a clay block in a furnace. One clay block becomes one terracotta. Do not smelt clay balls, because they turn into bricks instead.
| Step | What to do | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Collect clay blocks, or craft 4 clay balls into 1 clay block | Clay block |
| 2 | Smelt the clay block in a furnace with any fuel | Terracotta |
| 3 | Craft 8 terracotta around 1 dye | 8 stained terracotta |
| 4 | Smelt stained terracotta in a furnace | Glazed terracotta |
Where to get clay
- Rivers, lakes and swamps: clay patches sit on the bottom of shallow water. They look gray-blue and smooth. Break them with a shovel for 4 clay balls each.
- Lush caves: pools in lush caves often have clay underneath.
- Mud to clay: place mud on a block above pointed dripstone, and the mud slowly dries into clay. Make mud by using a water bottle on dirt. This gives you renewable clay anywhere.
- Villagers: mason villagers buy clay balls and sell terracotta, colored terracotta and glazed terracotta at higher levels.
- Trail ruins and loot: some structures contain terracotta and clay.
A clay block gives 4 clay balls when mined without Silk Touch, and you need to craft those 4 balls back into a block to smelt it into terracotta. With Silk Touch you keep the block directly.
Where to find terracotta naturally
The easiest way to get huge amounts of terracotta is the badlands biome, also called mesa. Badlands hills are made of layers of terracotta in bands of color: plain terracotta plus white, orange, yellow, brown, red and light gray stained terracotta. Mining a single badlands mountain with a pickaxe gives you stacks of colored blocks without any smelting or dye. Badlands also contain extra gold ore and mineshafts on the surface, so they are worth visiting early.
Terracotta needs a pickaxe to drop as an item. Any pickaxe works. Its hardness is 1.25 and blast resistance 4.2, about the same as stone, so it is a solid building material.
How to make colored (stained) terracotta
Place 8 terracotta around 1 dye on a crafting table to get 8 stained terracotta of that color. There are 16 colors, matching the 16 dyes. If you need dyes, read how to make every dye in Minecraft. Stained terracotta cannot be re-dyed back to plain terracotta in most cases, so plan colors before you craft.
Glazed terracotta
Smelt any stained terracotta in a furnace to get glazed terracotta of the same color. Each color has its own bold, tiled pattern, and the pattern rotates depending on which way you face when placing it. By placing four blocks in a square with different rotations, you can make larger patterns, which is why glazed terracotta is a favorite for floors, walls and pixel art.
| Type | How to get | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Terracotta | Smelt a clay block, or mine badlands | Warm, neutral walls and roofs |
| Stained terracotta | 8 terracotta + 1 dye, or badlands | Colored builds and pixel art with a matte finish |
| Glazed terracotta | Smelt stained terracotta | Patterned floors, feature walls, tiles |
Special behavior of glazed terracotta
Glazed terracotta can be pushed by pistons, but it does not stick to slime blocks or honey blocks. Redstone builders use it in flying machines and piston contraptions to stop specific blocks from being pulled along. Sticky pistons can still push and pull glazed terracotta itself.
Building ideas with terracotta
- Desert and Mediterranean houses: orange and white terracotta with sandstone and acacia wood.
- Modern builds: white, light gray and black terracotta give clean matte walls that look better than wool and do not burn.
- Roofs: brown or red terracotta works well with stairs from other blocks, because terracotta has no stairs or slabs of its own.
- Pixel art: stained terracotta has more muted tones than concrete or wool, which helps with shading.
- Floors: glazed terracotta tiles in kitchens, bathrooms and temples.
Terracotta vs concrete vs wool
| Block | Look | Flammable | Colors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terracotta | Matte, earthy, muted | No | Plain + 16 |
| Concrete | Bright and flat | No | 16 |
| Wool | Soft, textured | Yes | 16 |
If you want very bright, vivid colors, use concrete; see how to make concrete. Use terracotta for softer tones and natural-looking builds.
Farming terracotta
For big projects, combine a mud-to-clay dripstone farm with a row of furnaces, or simply strip-mine a badlands biome. A badlands base with a couple of tunnels through the hills can give thousands of blocks quickly, and you can sort the colors into chests as you mine. Use Efficiency on your pickaxe to speed this up.
Java vs Bedrock
Terracotta recipes, smelting and badlands generation are the same in both editions. Glazed terracotta behavior with pistons and slime is also the same. Mason trades can differ slightly in price.
Terracotta FAQ
How do you make terracotta in Minecraft?
Smelt a clay block in a furnace. Each clay block becomes one terracotta.
How do you get terracotta without smelting?
Mine it in the badlands biome or trade with mason villagers.
How do you make glazed terracotta?
Smelt stained terracotta in a furnace.
Why did my clay turn into bricks?
You smelted clay balls. Smelt clay blocks to get terracotta.
Can you make terracotta stairs?
No. Terracotta has no stairs or slabs; use similar colored blocks for roofs.
Smelting terracotta in bulk
One furnace smelts a block every 10 seconds, so a stack of 64 clay blocks takes a little over 10 minutes. To speed this up, place a row of furnaces with hoppers feeding clay from a chest above and fuel from the side, then collect terracotta from a chest below. Eight furnaces in parallel turn a full stack in under two minutes. Blast furnaces cannot smelt clay, so use regular furnaces only. Kelp blocks and coal are good fuels: one coal smelts 8 blocks, one dried kelp block smelts 20.
Stained terracotta color guide
Each of the 16 dyes creates its own terracotta shade, and those shades are noticeably darker and more muted than the matching wool or concrete. White terracotta has a warm pink-beige tone, light gray looks almost brown, and blue terracotta is a dusty slate color. Many builders combine them on purpose: orange and red terracotta for warm roofs, cyan and light gray for weathered walls, and black and brown for deep shadows. Before committing to a large build, place one block of each candidate color together in daylight to see how they look side by side, because the in-game lighting changes the shades a lot.
Glazed terracotta patterns
The rotation of glazed terracotta depends on the direction you face when you place it. Placing four blocks in a 2 by 2 square while turning a quarter turn for each block creates a larger symmetrical pattern. Some colors, such as cyan, light blue and magenta, make arrows or circles when rotated, which builders use for direction markers in stations and minecart systems. Magenta glazed terracotta has a clear arrow pattern, so test its rotation before laying a long path. Glazed terracotta also breaks quickly with any pickaxe, so it is easy to fix a misplaced tile.