The one thing common among all the best Minecraft custom maps is the hard work that goes into making them. Even if you want to use the structures already in the game, you have to manually move or craft them on your map. Only if there was a simple way to make them appear anywhere you want. Lucky for all map creators, that’s exactly what Minecraft has added to the game and what we are here to explain today. One of the lesser-known features of the latest Minecraft 1.19 update is the new “/place” command. With the place command, you can place structures, features, and a lot more anywhere in your Minecraft world. And the best part is that, unlike other Minecraft commands, it’s not that hard to use. With that out of the gate, let’s understand how to use the new place command in Minecraft.
Use Place Command in Minecraft (2022)
Unfortunately, the new “place” command only has extreme power in the Java edition. So, Bedrock users have to wait for the parity change to get the improved command. However, if you are in the bunch of lucky Java users, feel free to use the table below to explore all the game mechanics around place command in Minecraft.
What is “/Place” Command in Minecraft?
The new “/place” command in Minecraft 1.19 arrives as one of the most powerful commands in the game as it lets you place any in-game feature anywhere you want. Here, the feature can refer to an in-game structure, mobs, items from a biome, and a lot more.
The /place command is a replacement for the “/placefeature” command from Minecraft 1.18 and earlier. But while replacing it, the place command in Minecraft provides us with a bunch of exciting new features too. The existing “placefeature” command only allowed you to place items from different biomes and areas at particular places. But you can use the new place command to do the following things:
- Spawn any in-game structure at any coordinate in the game
- Place world features under certain conditions
- Place jigsaws (explained below) of structures at any coordinates
- Use in-game templates to build structures or just their selected segments
We will go over how to use the place command for each of these options in a later section, so keep reading. But before that, let’s talk about how to enable commands to use /place in the game.
How to Use Commands in Minecraft
Commands in Minecraft are similar to cheats in other games. So, to use the new “/place” command, you will have to enable cheats in your world. Follow these steps to enable cheats in Minecraft:
1. First, load your Minecraft world and press the “Esc” key to open the pause menu. Then, click on the “Open to LAN” button.
2. Next, toggle the “Allow Cheats” option to “ON”. Then, click on the “Start LAN World” button. Doing so will take you back to your Minecraft world, and you can freely use commands in your game.
Do note that using the LAN options turns your world into a temporary local server. So, if there are other players on your LAN network, they can use this opportunity to join your server. But it only works if you share your in-game port address with them.
Things You Can Make with Place Command
The place command can be used in three different ways. Let’s go over each of them separately.
How to Place Structures in Minecraft
In Minecraft, “structures” refer to complete buildings and groups of buildings that exist in the game. The term includes villages, Pillager locations, and even the new Ancient City. With the help of the “/place” command, you can place any of the in-game structures at specific coordinates.
Do keep in mind that every structure might not spawn at every location due to certain spawn requirements. For example, you can’t make a desert pyramid on top of an ocean. But you can spawn a desert village in the ocean, even though the scene might look bizarre. So, you will have to test the compatibility of blocks with certain locations. But the safest bet is placing the structures in their home biomes.
Place World Features Anywhere
The “features” option for the /place command refers to everything in the game that isn’t a structure or a living mob. That includes everything ranging from trees to blocks. You can use the “/place” command in Minecraft to put features in your world almost wherever you desire.
But just like structures, you can’t place these world features anywhere. They must be compatible with the Minecraft biome in which you plan on placing that feature. For example, you can’t plant underwater plants above water.
What is Jigsaw in Minecraft
The term “jigsaw” refers to the various segments of any in-game structure. With the help of the place command in Minecraft, you can use the jigsaw option to spawn any parts or even complete structures anywhere in the game.
For example – you can use the jigsaw option in /place command to spawn large structures like villages or ancient cities on top of oceans where they clearly don’t belong. Unlike the structure option, the “jigsaw” option doesn’t care about the biome compatibility of the structure. However, its usage is more complex and might require players to spend some time learning how to use it efficiently.
Use Templates to Make Structures
Because the Jigsaw feature is both powerful and complex to use, the developers have also included an easy alternative to it. You can use the “template” option of the place command in Minecraft 1.19 to do almost everything that the “jigsaw” option does but without any complex coding. It gives you ready-to-use command templates inside the game to spawn any structure at any location. Like the”jigsaw” option, it doesn’t care about the compatibility of the structure and the spawn location.
How to Use “/Place” Command in Minecraft
We will first cover the basic options and their syntaxes for the place command in Minecraft. You can learn about the advanced options in their own dedicated sections that follow.
Syntax of Feature and Structure Options
To use the place command, you have to open your in-game chat and enter the command with the correct syntax. For basic options, you can use the following syntaxes:
- /place feature “feature name”
Example: /place feature minecraft:mangrove
This command places a Mangrove tree at your current location.
- /place structure “structure name”
Example: /place structure minecraft:village_snowy
This command places a snowy village at your current location.
How to Use Place Jigsaw Command
With the easy options out of the way, we will now focus on the “jigsaw” option of the place command, which is much more complex. But it ignores compatibility requirements, so you can literally place anything anywhere in your Minecraft world. It’s the most powerful option of the place command.
The jigsaw option has the following syntax:
- /place jigsaw “structure source” “anchor“ “coverage number“
Example: /place jigsaw minecraft:village/snowy/streets bottom 7
This command will generate only the streets of a snowy village near you at its full scale.
Here, the “structure source” covers the target structure you are trying to spawn. And the “coverage” whose range is between 1 to 7 sets how large an area the structure can cover, with “7” being the highest and safest value. Finally, the “anchor” is a string in the NBT tag within the structure file, which is where things get complicated.
The game doesn’t help you autocomplete the anchor part of the jigsaw option. So, you will have to refer to Minecraft Wiki to find NBT information on each structure. However, if that feels like too much work, you can rely on the template option of the place command.
How to Use Place Template Command
As you might have guessed, the “jigsaw” option isn’t likely to be a fan favorite due to its complex syntax. Fortunately, the developers know that, and they have given us the “template” option to counter that. If you don’t want to customize your structures and only want to spawn the existing ones freely, the “template” option is for you.
The template option has the following syntax:
- /place template “template name”
Example: /place template minecraft:ancient_city/city/entrance/entrance_path_5
This command places an ancient city entrance next to your current location. Unlike other options, it can also place structures in the air, which can come in handy for building floating cities and bases.
Start Using the Place Command in Minecraft
Whether you want to experiment with your Minecraft base design or create custom maps, the place command is a powerful tool to achieve either. But with great power comes great responsibility. If used incorrectly, this command can easily crash your game and make your world unloadable. So, unless you are familiar with the best Minecraft commands, do practice caution. Alternatively, you can also opt for the best Minecraft mods to get similar powerful abilities in the game without writing a single line of command. Though, you have to install Forge in Minecraft to run the mods. But it is still easier than learning the “jigsaw” option of the place command. Having said that, what other type of command confuses you in Minecraft? Tell us in the comments below, and we will make it easier to use for you.
