What are map levels in Minecraft

"Minecraft" worlds are massive, and it's easy to get lost if you stray too far from your base. To keep yourself on track, you could erect beacons, use torches — or simply draw a map.

You can craft, trade for, or find maps throughout your "Minecraft" world. These maps will help you figure out where you are, where you've been, and where you're headed to. And once you've got a map, you can even add your own custom markers, which is great for noting your land's most interesting features.

Here's how to get your hands on a map in "Minecraft," and then use it.

How to make or find a map in 'Minecraft'

There are three ways to get a map in "Minecraft:" make one, trade for one, or find one in a chest.

Crafting a map

To make a map in Minecraft, you'll need one compass and eight pieces of paper. Both the paper and compass can be crafted with raw materials that you'll dig and scavenge for within your world. 

Important: If you're playing "Minecraft: Bedrock Edition," you can also combine nine pieces of paper for a basic map that will still draw the land around you, but won't track your location.

"Bedrock Edition" will also let you start a new game with a map already equipped. Just toggle on "Starting Map" in the World Preferences menu before creating the world.

Firstly, paper. Paper is crafted from sugar cane, one of the most common resources around. Sugar cane grows near water in both swamp and desert biomes. Placing three pieces of sugar cane in a row on your crafting table will give you three pieces of paper. This means that you'll need at least nine pieces of sugar cane for your map.

Secondly, a compass. You can make one of these with four iron ingots and one piece of redstone dust. You can find iron ore and redstone dust easily when mining, especially as you get nearer to the bottom of the world. You'll need an iron pickaxe or better to mine redstone.

Note: Redstone ore often spawns near lava, so be careful when mining.

Once you have at least one piece of redstone dust and four iron ore blocks, smelt the ore into four iron ingots with a furnace. Then at a crafting table, place the four ingots in four spaces adjacent to the center block, where you'll place the redstone dust.

Once you have your materials, you can finally make a map. Place the compass in the center slot of the 3x3 crafting table area, and insert a paper in each of the other nine slots.

You now have an empty map, ready to be filled out.

Finding a map

"Craft" is obviously in the game's name for a reason — most everything you use in-game can be crafted. 

But you can also try your luck at acquiring an empty map in one of your world's treasure chests. Treasure chests in sunken shipwrecks have about an eight percent chance of holding a map; the chest in a stronghold's library has about a 11 percent chance; and the cartographer's chest in a village has an almost 50 percent chance. 

That said, if you've managed to find a cartographer, you can also talk to them to buy a map for seven or eight emeralds.

How to use a map in 'Minecraft'

Now you have an "empty map," which isn't particularly helpful. Fortunately, it's easy to fix.

Simply equip and "use" the map to instantly draw a picture of everything around you. The game will also now assign a number to the map so it won't be called empty anymore.

As you walk around with the map up, more and more of your surroundings will be filled in. You can track yourself with the tiny white marker.

Of course, your "Minecraft" world is bigger than what's shown on the map. Once you leave its range, either make a new map to keep tracking yourself, or zoom your original map out. 

You can zoom out your map by combining it with eight more pieces of paper at a crafting table, or only one more piece of paper at a cartography table. This can be done up to four times, and each zoom level doubles the map's current range.

Upgrade your maps to see more of the landscape. Emma Witman/Insider

Your map will be even more valuable once you've added custom location markers. Markers will show up on your map as colored dots, which is great if you need to make note of a specific location.

To place a marker, you'll need to first make a banner. Banners can be crafted by placing six pieces of wool (they need to be the same color) in the top two rows, and one stick in the bottom-middle slot of your crafting table. You'll also want to name the banner using an anvil, which will cost an experience point. 

Once you have your banner, travel to the spot you want to mark and place the banner down. Then, holding the map, use it on the banner.

If you did it right, you'll see a dot show up on your map, with the same color and location as the banner you placed.

Other than the markers you add yourself, you won't see too many other icons on the map. As noted, you're indicated with a pointed white dot. Other players will be shown with this same white dot.

quick question, what does the (level 1/4) mean in the treasure map description? from Minecraft

This Minecraft tutorial explains how to create different sized maps with screenshots and step-by-step instructions.

In Minecraft, you can create up to 5 different sizes of maps in the game. The bigger the map, the more of the terrain you can see. With larger maps, you can easily find your friends and see their movements when they join your world.

Let's explore how to create the different sizes of maps in Minecraft.

Required Materials

In Minecraft, these are the required materials to upgrade your map to Level 4 which is the largest size:

Steps to Create Different Sized Maps

1. You need a Locator Map

First, you will need a locator map that is crafted using 8 paper and 1 compass. This type of map allows you to see the location of yourself and your friends that join your world. The map starts out as a Level 0 map which is the smallest sized map that you can craft in the game.

When you open this map, it should look something like this:

You can see yourself (the white dot) and the direction you are facing. We are currently facing down which is South on the map.

2. Upgrade the Map to Level 1

To upgrade the size of you map, you need to upgrade your map from Level 0 to Level 1. To do this, add the Level 0 map and 8 more paper to the 3x3 crafting grid.

The newly crafted map will now be upgraded to a Level 1 map which is larger than the previous. When you open this map, it won't be completely filled in.

You will need to travel around in the world to fill in the detail.

3. Upgrade the Map to Level 2

To upgrade your map to an even larger size, you need to upgrade your map from Level 1 to Level 2. Add the Level 1 map and 8 more paper to the 3x3 crafting grid.

The newly crafted map will now be even larger and will be upgraded to a Level 2 map.

When you open this map, only a portion of the map will be filled in.

4. Upgrade the Map to Level 3

To upgrade your map to an even larger size, you need to upgrade your map from Level 2 to Level 3. To do so, add the Level 2 map and 8 more paper to the 3x3 crafting grid.

The newly crafted map will now be upgraded to a Level 3 map which is larger than the previous.

When you open this map, there will be even more to fill in than the last size.

4. Upgrade the Map to Level 4

To upgrade your map to the largest size, you need to upgrade your map from Level 3 to Level 4. Add the Level 3 map and 8 more paper to the 3x3 crafting grid.

The newly crafted map will now be upgraded to a Level 4 map which is largest map size in Minecraft.

This map takes very long time to fill in. Here is what our Level 4 map looks like once it has been filled in.

On the map, you are the white dot and the other colored dots are your friends that join your world. As the players travel around in the world, the player dots in the map will show their current location (so you can literally watch the players move around in the game on the map).

Congratulations, you just learned how to create different sized maps in Minecraft.

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