How to Make and Use Maps (Never Get Lost)
Maps make exploring painless. Here's how to craft one, zoom it out, and mark your base.
A map is the easiest way to stop getting lost — and to find your way home.
Craft a map
Combine 8 Paper around a Compass on the crafting grid to make a Locator Map (it shows a white marker for your position). Paper comes from Sugar Cane (3 sugar cane = 3 paper), and a compass needs 4 iron + 1 redstone.
Right-click to open the map — it fills in as you walk around.
Zoom out to cover more ground
A fresh map only shows a small area. Use a Cartography Table (or the crafting grid) to add paper and zoom out. Each level roughly quadruples the area, up to 4 levels.
Mark locations with banners
Place a banner, then right-click it with your open map to add a labelled marker — perfect for tagging your base, a village, or a stronghold.
Copy a map
Combine a filled map with an empty map on the crafting grid to make copies for friends. They all update together as any of you explore.
For pinpoint navigation, coordinates (F3, or the on-screen coords) are exact — pair them with our Nether portal calculator when linking bases across dimensions.