How to find a bastion remnant in Minecraft (Java 1.21)

To find a bastion, search the Nether region by region instead of wandering. The Nether is cut into square regions, and in Java Edition each one attempts a bastion remnant 3 times in 5, so bastions are the more common of the two big Nether structures. Below is how the grid works, which biome rules a bastion out, the /locate command, and how to tell which of the four bastion types you’ve found.

All game facts in this post are for Java Edition 1.21.x unless a line says Bedrock.

How to find a bastion: the region grid

Bastion remnants share their placement with Nether fortresses. The game splits the Nether into regions of 432 × 432 blocks in Java (480 × 480 on Bedrock), and each region holds either a fortress or a bastion, never both ^[1]. In the game’s own structure data, that set is called nether_complexes: a grid spacing of 27 chunks, a separation of 4 chunks, and the weights 60% bastion, 40% fortress ^[2].

What that means on the ground:

• A 4-chunk margin stays empty. Along each region’s south and east borders, nothing generates, which leaves a usable 368 × 368 blocks in Java (416 × 416 on Bedrock) ^[1]. Two structures can still end up close together where neighbouring regions meet at that border ^[1].
• Bastions are the likelier pick. Java attempts a bastion in 3 of every 5 regions; Bedrock in 2 of every 3 ^[1].
• All four types are equally likely. Bridge, hoglin stables, housing units and treasure room each have the same chance ^[1].
• A fortress means no bastion in that region. Since each region gets one structure ^[1], seeing a Nether-brick fortress tells you to move on to the next region. The same rule works the other way in our guide to finding a Nether fortress fast.

Where to look first

Start with the four regions that meet at the centre of the Nether (north-west, north-east, south-west and south-east of 0, 0). If each is a bastion with probability 3/5, the chance that none of the four even attempts one is (2/5)⁴ = 16/625, about 2.6%. On Bedrock it’s (1/3)⁴ = 1/81, about 1.2%. That’s our arithmetic from the wiki’s odds ^[1], and it’s an upper bound on your luck: the basalt-delta rule below turns some bastion attempts into fortresses.

Which biomes have bastions

Bastions generate in every Nether biome except basalt deltas: nether wastes, crimson forests, warped forests and soul sand valleys all qualify ^[1]. Some pages that rank for this question say “only nether wastes and crimson forests”. The wiki lists all four, with screenshots of bastions in a warped forest and a soul sand valley ^{[3, 4]}.

The one exclusion matters:

• Basalt deltas never hold a bastion, though a bastion next door may stretch into one ^[1].
• Since Java 1.18.2, a bastion attempt in basalt deltas becomes a fortress instead of leaving the region empty ^[1]. The structure-set rule is the same: if the picked structure can’t go in that biome, another one from the set is chosen ^[2].
• So a basalt delta at a region’s centre is bad news if you want a bastion. The game’s choice of fortress or bastion is made for the spot; you can’t argue it out of a delta.

A catch with piglins

Ordinary piglins don’t spawn naturally in warped forests, soul sand valleys or basalt deltas ^[5]. A bastion is different: its piglins, brutes and hoglins are placed when the structure generates, whatever the biome, and they don’t despawn ^[1]. So a bastion in a soul sand valley is still full of piglins, even though the valley around it has none.

What a bastion looks like from far away

A bastion is a huge, castle-like ruin ^[1], built mostly from blackstone, polished blackstone bricks and basalt, with blocks of gold set into it ^[1]. A fortress, by contrast, is a dark red castle of Nether brick ^[6]. Black and grey means bastion; dark red means fortress.

Two more tells:

• It can float over lava. Unlike a fortress, a bastion over a lava sea gets no pillars down to the ground below; it simply hangs there, level ^[1]. Mojang closed the bug report on that as working as intended ^[1].
• It can be partly buried. Buried sections can exist within the bastion and beside it ^[1], so a wall of blackstone poking out of netherrack is worth a closer look.

Using /locate

If your world allows commands, Java Edition will point you there: /locate structure bastion_remnant. The syntax is /locate structure <structure> ^[7], and in Java it needs permission level 2 ^[7], and the bastion’s ID is bastion_remnant ^[8]. The answer gives the coordinates and the horizontal distance, and in Java you can click the coordinates to put a teleport command in the chat box ^[7].

On Bedrock, /locate works only with cheats on ^[7], and since 1.19.30 it accepts bastion_remnant as well as the older bastionremnant ^{[7, 8]}.

Which bastion did you find?

The wiki’s looting tutorial says the first job at a bastion is working out its type, because each one needs a different route [@mcwiki-tutorial-looting-a-bastion-remnant, sec. “Specific Bastion Types”]:

Sources for the rows: the tutorial ^[9] and the structure page ^[1]. The bridge piece’s block count lists the same 16 blocks of gold ^[1].

Why people come

Bastions are the only place to find gilded blackstone, the Pigstep music disc, the snout banner pattern and armour trim, magma cube spawners, and the netherite upgrade smithing template ^[1]. That last one is why most players need a bastion at all: without the template, diamond gear can’t become netherite ^[10].

• The treasure room’s chests always have one. In Java the treasure-chest loot table has a pool that rolls the netherite upgrade every time ^[1], which is why the tutorial calls treasure bastions the only guaranteed source ^[9].
• Other chests sometimes do. Since the 1.20 update (first in snapshot 23w05a), bridge, generic and hoglin-stable chests carry it 10% of the time ^[10].
• One is enough. Seven diamonds, a block of netherrack and the template craft two templates ^[10].

Entering a bastion earns the advancement “Those Were the Days”, and looting one of its chests earns “War Pigs” ^[11].

Before you walk in

Finding the bastion is the easy part. The looting tutorial’s short list [@mcwiki-tutorial-looting-a-bastion-remnant, sec. “What to bring”]:

• One piece of gold armour, so ordinary piglins don’t attack on sight. Piglin brutes ignore it, and opening a chest or mining gold where a piglin can see you angers them anyway ^[9]. Our bartering guide covers what else gold does around piglins.
• A bow, a shield and blocks. A three-block pillar leaves melee piglins and brutes helpless ^[9]. Brutes disable shields with their axes, but one blocked hit can still save you ^[9]. The full fight is in how to fight a piglin brute.
• A lava bucket. Piglins and brutes aren’t immune to fire, and a lava kill doesn’t count as your attack, so it doesn’t turn the other piglins on you ^[9].
• Fire Resistance, especially for a treasure room with its lava floor ^[9].

Two more facts to plan around. Brutes spawn only when the bastion generates and never come back once killed ^[12], so a cleared bastion stays safer. And the tutorial’s advice is to raid from the top down, because piglins try to ambush you by dropping to lower floors ^[9].

Nixi’s angle: a bastion she never went to

Nixi is an AI that plays Minecraft by itself, live on Twitch. Her own records are blunt about bastions: she never visited one. Across her 516 play logs from 27 September to 9 October 2026 (runs 1 and 2), the word “bastion” appears only in a fact line her planner carries about fortresses, that 40% of the Nether’s 432-block regions hold one and the rest hold bastions. No log shows her entering a bastion or opening a bastion chest.

The cost of skipping them shows up elsewhere in her logs:

• The Nether was where she died most. Her death records from 1 to 9 October list 144 deaths, 75 of them in the Nether.
• Gold was a recurring cause. Ten of those deaths have “no gold” as a root cause, the first on 1 October at 10:38, the last on 5 October at 06:04. Five were “slain by Piglin” or “tried to swim in lava to escape Piglin”.
• A bastion is where the gold is. A bridge bastion’s chalice alone holds 16 gold blocks ^[9], and a block of gold is worth nine ingots ^[13], so that’s 144 ingots. Her route aimed at a fortress instead, and she never had a reason to detour.

That’s our reading, not a measured result: a bastion trip has its own risks, brutes first, and her run never tested it. Since 18 October her stream has been on an adventure map, Rescue Mission (her run card, 28 October), so there’s no new Nether data yet. Where bastions fit in a speedrun, for the gold and the barter, is in our speedrun route guide.

FAQ

Can bastions spawn in soul sand valleys or warped forests?

Yes. They generate in every Nether biome except basalt deltas ^[1]. Piglins don’t spawn naturally in those two biomes ^[5], but a bastion’s own piglins are placed when it generates ^[1].

Is a bastion or a fortress more common?

A bastion, in both editions: Java attempts one in 3 of 5 regions, Bedrock in 2 of 3 ^[1]. In basalt deltas, the attempt becomes a fortress instead ^[1].

Can an eye of ender find a bastion?

No. An eye of ender only flies in the Overworld, towards a stronghold; in the Nether it does nothing ^[14]. Use the region grid or /locate structure bastion_remnant.

Which bastion type is best for gold?

The bridge: its chalice holds 16 gold blocks in plain sight ^[9]. Housing units have 12 in fixed spots; hoglin stables are the most luck-dependent ^[9].

Do piglin brutes respawn?

No. They spawn only when the bastion generates and don’t respawn once killed, though the bastion keeps spawning the biome’s normal mobs ^{[1, 12]}.