The entire city of Davis, California — rebuilt block-by-block in Minecraft at 1:1 scale.
Real LiDAR terrain. Real building heights. Real bike paths. Real valley oaks. Every structure placed from actual geodata — and hand-finished by people who know this town.
| Platform | Address | Port |
|---|---|---|
| Java Edition | builddavis.world |
25606 |
| Bedrock (Mobile / Switch / Xbox) | builddavis.world |
25606 |
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total blocks | ~3.0 billion |
| Buildings | ~20,000 |
| Trees | 48,000 |
| Road segments | 7,000 |
| Bike paths | 100 miles |
| Iconic landmarks | 13 hand-built |
BuildDavis uses a 6-stage geospatial ETL pipeline to convert real-world data into Minecraft:
- Fetch — Pull building footprints, roads, trees, and infrastructure from OpenStreetMap, Overture Maps, USGS LiDAR, and City of Davis GIS
- Parse — Extract and classify 94,000+ geographic elements
- Fuse — Merge overlapping data sources with priority rules (Davis GIS > LiDAR > Overture > OSM)
- Enrich — Validate building heights, inject facade colors, apply zone-specific material palettes
- Adapt — Transform enriched geodata into block placement instructions
- Render — Generate Minecraft Java Edition region files (.mca) with 15-block bedrock depth, interior generation, and roof shapes
Iconic landmarks (Water Tower, Amtrak Station, Stadium, Carousel, Egghead sculptures, etc.) are hand-built using a custom StructureBuilder → NBT pipeline and placed at their real GPS coordinates.
Two ways to help — no Minecraft required for the first:
Add real-world detail to OpenStreetMap — benches, bike racks, trees, shop names. Your edits automatically appear in the next world generation.
Apply for builder access at builddavis.org. Claim a zone, get the style guide, and make your neighborhood look exactly like the real thing.
- World generation: Custom Python pipeline (fetch → parse → fuse → adapt → render)
- Render engine: Rust-based .mca region file generator
- Terrain: USGS 3DEP LiDAR (1m resolution DEM)
- Data sources: OpenStreetMap, Overture Maps, City of Davis GIS, UC Davis Tree Database
- Server: Paper 1.21.4 + GeyserMC (cross-platform Java + Bedrock)
- Hosting: Apex Hosting
- Website: Static HTML on GitHub Pages at builddavis.org
| Landmark | Type |
|---|---|
| UC Davis Water Tower | 48-block tall elevated tank with "UC DAVIS" lettering |
| Davis Amtrak Station | Mission Revival architecture, arched colonnade |
| UCD Health Stadium | Full oval track, bleachers, end zones, goal posts |
| Varsity Theatre | Art Deco marquee on 2nd Street |
| Toad Tunnel | Toad Hollow art installation |
| Manetti Shrem Museum | Grand Canopy with 68 columns, two pavilions |
| Flying Carousel | Octagonal pavilion with hand-carved animals |
| 7 Egghead Sculptures | Yin & Yang, Bookhead, See/Hear No Evil, Eye on Mrak, Stargazer |
This project is a fork with significant modifications. See LICENSE for details.
- Website: builddavis.org
- Discord: discord.gg/Rt7c6Jje
- Server:
builddavis.world:25606