End cities are the only source of elytra, and most players find their first one by flying in a straight line from the main island and hoping. That does work eventually. It also burns through ender pearls, because the game doesn't scatter end cities at random. They generate on a fixed grid of chunks, so whole bands of the outer End can never contain one. Learn the grid, or skip it and give your seed to the End City Finder, and an afternoon of searching becomes a ten-minute trip.
Quick answer
In the current Java structure settings, end cities use a spacing of 20 chunks and a separation of 11. Those two numbers produce the 0-to-8 offset described below.
The grid rule
Java Edition places each structure type using two numbers. The spacing is the size of the repeating cell in chunks, and the separation is how much of that cell is off-limits. End cities have a spacing of 20 and a separation of 11, so every 20×20 chunk cell has a 9×9 chunk region in its corner where a city can start and an 11-chunk margin where nothing can.
In block coordinates, a city can only begin in a chunk whose X and Z chunk numbers both fall in 0 to 8, plus any multiple of 20. Chunks 0 to 8 are blocks 0 to 143, chunks 20 to 28 are blocks 320 to 463, and so on. If your X coordinate is anywhere between 144 and 319, you're in a dead band. You will never find a city origin there, however far you walk along Z.
Whether a cell actually gets a city comes down to a random roll and the terrain. The cell's candidate chunk has to land on End Highlands, the biome with chorus trees, and not on a small island or the void. That's why cities cluster on big islands, and why you can cross several cells with nothing in them.
Finding them from your seed
Generation is deterministic, so the seed tells you where every city is before you set off.
- Get your seed with
/seedin singleplayer, or ask whoever runs the server. The finder needs the exact number. - Open the End City Finder and enter the seed. It lists city coordinates working outward from the centre.
- If you want an elytra, pick the nearest city with a ship. The finder marks ship cities where it can determine them.
- Use the end gateway route. Throw an ender pearl into the gateway that appears after the dragon fight and you land on the outer islands. From there, head to the coordinates.
If you haven't been to the End yet, the Stronghold Finder does the same job for the portal.
Finding them without the seed
On a server that doesn't share its seed, let the grid guide your search instead of wandering.
- From the gateway, note your coordinates and work out which cell you're in. Divide by 320 and look at the remainder.
- Move to the next corner region, the block range 0 to 143 in both axes of the next multiple of 320, and scan it from a high point. Cities are tall and purple, and on default render distance you'll spot one from about 150 blocks.
- Ignore the middle of each cell. Walking the diagonal between corner regions covers the most possible city sites per block travelled.
Chorus fruit means you're on Highlands terrain, the only place a city can be. Bring a stack of blocks for bridging, since a water bucket doesn't work in the End, and a slow falling potion for the drop off a tower.
The ship, and what is inside
Not every city has a ship. Each of a city's tower bridges rolls for one, at about one in eight per bridge, and roughly half of cities end up with a ship. It's the floating hull next to the tallest tower, joined to it by a short walkway.
Inside the ship:
- The elytra, in an item frame in the rear treasure room, guarded by a shulker. This is the only place elytra generate in survival.
- A dragon head on the bow.
- Two chests with enchanted diamond gear, iron gear and, since the 1.21.11 snapshots, diamond spears.
The towers hold the rest of the loot. Expect more enchanted gear, gold, diamonds and the Spire armor trim template, which is common enough that most players walk out with one. Shulkers drop shulker shells, and two shells make a shulker box, so kill every shulker you pass. Dodging them just leaves boxes on the table.
FAQ
Do end cities spawn in a grid?
Yes. Java Edition generates end cities on a repeating 20-chunk grid. Each city's starting chunk has X and Z chunk coordinates in the range 0 to 8 plus a multiple of 20, and between those 9-chunk corners sits an 11-chunk band on each axis where a city can never start. Cities still need End Highlands terrain, so not every grid cell has one.
How far from the main island are end cities?
The outer islands start at roughly 1,000 blocks from the centre, and the gateway portal drops you at about that distance, so the nearest city is usually a few hundred blocks from the gateway. Most players use cities 1,000 to 2,000 blocks out. The grid keeps going indefinitely past that.
Does every end city have an elytra?
No. Only cities with an End ship have one, and roughly half of cities get a ship. The elytra is always in an item frame in the ship's treasure room, never in the towers. If a city has no ship, grab the tower loot and move on to the next grid cell. Searching the towers won't turn up an elytra.
Can I find end cities on Bedrock Edition with the same rule?
Bedrock uses a similar grid, but it generates structures with its own seed algorithm, so Java seed finders give the wrong coordinates for Bedrock worlds. The dead-band logic still works as a search strategy and the biome requirement is the same. For exact positions, use a Bedrock-specific finder.