Set a world border on your Minecraft server

The world border is the edge of the playable area. Players take damage once they are past it and outside the damage buffer. There is no panel button for it: you set it with the worldborder command in the Console tab, and it works on every software we offer.

Checked against Minecraft Java Edition 26.3, October 2026.

Before you start

• Run the commands in the Console tab without the leading slash.
• Sizes are a diameter in blocks. A border of 5000 centred on 0, 0 reaches 2500 blocks out in every direction.
• The smallest size is 1 and the largest is 59999968, and worldborder set refuses a size outside that range.
• Since Minecraft 1.21.9 each dimension has its own border, and the command only changes the dimension it runs in.
• To pick the dimension from the Console, run the command through execute in, as shown under Other dimensions below.

Set the size and the centre

Put the centre where you want the middle of the playable area. Setting it first means the size you set next is measured from the right spot.

worldborder center 0 0
worldborder set 5000

worldborder get prints the current size, rounded to the nearest whole block.

To grow or shrink the border by an amount instead, use worldborder add. A negative number shrinks it:

worldborder add 1000
worldborder add -500

Move the border slowly

Both set and add take an optional time, so the border can move gradually. The unit depends on your version, so check it in the JAR Manager tab first.

A plain 600 on 1.21.11 or newer is 600 ticks, which is 30 seconds. Write the s to be sure.

Damage and warning

Players are not hurt until they are some distance outside the border. These three settings tune that. The values are examples to adjust:

worldborder damage buffer 5
worldborder damage amount 0.2
worldborder warning distance 5

The buffer is how many blocks outside the border a player can be before taking damage, and the amount sets the damage for each block past the buffer. The warning distance is how many blocks from the border the warning starts.

Other dimensions

Because the command acts on the dimension it runs in, give the Nether its own border from the Console by running it through execute in:

execute in minecraft:the_nether run worldborder set 1000

The Config Editor setting

Config Editor has a World border (blocks) box under World. It is the max-world-size server property, which the Minecraft Wiki describes as the distance from the world's centre where the border appears. Use the commands above to set the size.