# How does water in Minecraft know where the hole is?

- Series: [How It Spawns](https://miu.fm/howitspawns.md)
- Premieres: 2026-11-08
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## Story

How does water in Minecraft know where the hole is?

On flat ground there's no downhill to feel, so it doesn't feel one. Before it spreads, Minecraft's water checks every path along the floor, up to four blocks out, for a way down, and flows only toward the nearest. Two drops just as near? It splits. None within four? It spreads every way, seven blocks out. Walls and other water sources block the search, and it never looks straight back.

Markus Persson made this water in June 2010. He wrote that his first plan "ended up being far too unpredictable, causing weird vortexes (vortices?) of spinning water that would act as infinite water sources, effectively flooding the world." His verdict on the rule that replaced it: "The new system is much more predictable, if a bit silly."

The game's code still runs that search: the same look-ahead of four in the June 2010 Infdev build, Beta 1.7.3 and today's Java Edition 26.3. Since 1.9, lava outside the Nether only looks two.

The meadow, the layouts and their timing are our own simplified version, drawn in code; the rule is the game's, run on our layouts. The look-ahead is shown slowed down.

So the last one: left or right?

Sources: Markus Persson, "Dynamic water and Buckets", The Word of Notch, 15 June 2010 (archived copy). Minecraft Java Edition, the game's code in Mojang's releases Infdev 2010-06-18, Beta 1.7.3, 1.8.9, 1.9 to 1.12.2 and 26.3: FlowingFluid, WaterFluid, LavaFluid.
Not an official Minecraft video. Not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft.
Sounds and music: our own, made in code.

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