Behind the scenes: how OpenStreetMap data becomes a Minecraft world

You draw a rectangle, wait a few minutes, and get a Minecraft world. What actually happens in between? Here's the short version.

Step 1 — We ask OpenStreetMap what's there

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, community-built map of the world. For your selected area we fetch its data: building footprints with heights, roads and paths, water, parks, land use, and points of interest.

Step 2 — We add terrain

Flat buildings on flat ground would look wrong. We layer in elevation data so hills, valleys, riverbanks, and coastlines come through — your city sits on the real shape of the land.

Step 3 — Arnis turns data into blocks

The heavy lifting is done by Arnis, an open-source engine written in Rust. It translates each map feature into Minecraft blocks: building outlines become walls with roofs, roads become paths, parks become grass and trees, water becomes water. Materials are chosen to match what's actually there.

Step 4 — We package and deliver

The result is written as a standard Minecraft save — a .mcworld for Bedrock or a world folder for Java — and we email you a link. For Java worlds we also render an explorable 3D preview in your browser with BlueMap.

Open source all the way down

The conversion engine is Arnis (Apache-2.0, by Louis Erbkamm and contributors); the map data is OpenStreetMap, under the Open Database License. MapMC's job is to make all of this work in your browser in a couple of minutes — no install, no command line.

Curious to see it on your own city? Open the generator →.