So, I've gotten somewhat curious lately. If you read the title, you know what I'm curious about: How big is Minecraft's Earth, really? And by that, I mean on average, how big is its surface area. Let's investigate.

THE SIZE OF THE OVERWORLD:

So, on the Minecraft Wiki, it states that Minecraft's map is infinite, kinda. While the map will keep loading forever, the actual amount of blocks a player can interact with, is limited. The exact amount, in fact, is 32,000,000 blocks from the centre of the map, which is where you spawned. So, since that's simply heading in one direction, we can assume that the width of the Minecraft world, or Earth, or Overworld, or whatever you wanna call it, is 64,000,000 blocks, or so you'd think, but, the 32,000,000th block in each direction, is a fake block. Basically, you try and walk on it, and you'll just fall. So, really, the width of a Minecraft world is 63,999,998. A lot more complicated. Now, to find the surface area of the Minecraft world, we simply multiply 63,999,998 by itself (since the overworld is a square) and we get = 4,095,999,744,000,004 blocks squared.

Dang.

But, that is the size of it, in blocks. Let's try and use some real world measurements to get a somewhat better sense of its size. Now, a minecraft block is equal to 1 meter, in real life. So we can assume to 4,095,999,744,000,004  blocks squared = 40,959,997,440,000,004 meters squared. Now, a kilometre is equal to 1000 meters, so  4,095,999,744,000,004 meters divided by 1000 = 4,095,999,744,000.004 kilometres squared. It's less, but still friggin' massive! You want a better sense of how big that is? Well, the Earth (IRL), is about 510,000,000 - 509,000,000 kilometers squared.

You can fit the surface of Earth onto the Overworld, about 8031 times.  

That is, if they were the same shape.

Yes, the worlds we load up in Minecraft are flat maps, but I've read a few blogs on this subject, and what I think people are assuming is that, the Overworld is spherical. This may be true in our universe but, that is because our universe built on circular patterns, from protons and neutrons in the nucleus of atoms orbited by electrons to the planets spinning around the Sun.
But, this is not the case, in Minecraft. One only needs to glance at the game to know that it is based on squares. That means the atoms in minecraft are square, orbits are square, and planets, are square. And since all maps in Minecraft are more or less flat, we can assume that players only ever get to play on one side of the full Minecraft planet, at a time, if we take one side of a world only as the blocks that one can interact with. So, to find out how big the world of Minecraft REALLY is, we need to multiply 4,095,999,744,000.004  by 6 to give us =

24,575,998,464,000.02 kilometres squared. That, is massive. For some perspective, the surface area of the Sun, in real life, is 6.09 x 1012 Km = 60,900,000,000 Km squared.

The Overworld, is about 403 times the size, of our Sun, the BIGGEST object in our solar system.

That's pretty amazing right? You want more numbers, well, the mass of the Overworld, according to all these numbers should be about 1.6777216 x 1019 meters cubed.(About 19 zeroes after the 1). But the only problem, is that, that is not true. In minecraft, on average, 64 blocks/meters below the surface of the planet, is bedrock. Now, in real life, the top layer of the Earth, the Crust, can be anywhere from 35-70 km thick from soil level, down to 10-15 km at the bottom of the ocean. And below this crust, is the second layer of the Earth, the Mantle, and is, pretty much what we'd call lava. But, in Minecraft, there isn't lava underneath bedrock. There's nothing but the Void.

The centre of the Overworld, is empty.

HOLLOW MINECRAFT THEORY?:

How can this be possible, you ask? Well, I believe that the Overworld, may follow the Hollow Earth Theory. Hell, the name says as much. OVER - world, indicating that it is the outer most world. For those who aren't familiar with it, Hollow Earth theory states that the Earth is, well, hollow. Most fictions based around this theory, tend to say that there may infact be, another universe or universes, inside this hollow earth (cause, physics yo).

In fact, I have a theory, that The End is located, inside this Hollow Earth that is the Overworld. My reasoning for this? Well, one, the Island of the End is located in the Void, which is located underneath the surface of the Overworld. Second piece of reasoning, in a lot of fictions based around the Hollow Earth theory, one can only enter and exit the inner world, by using a portal. How does one enter and exit the End in Minecraft? A portal.

Although, using the portal reasoning, one could assume that The Nether is also located somewhere in this inner universe. Also, its name could indicate, that somehow, this may be so. The word Nether literally means 'lower in position'. As well as that, in the Nether, there is Void space, both above, and below the world. So maybe it is in between the Overworld and the End, since the End being called 'the End' may indicate it is the last, and smallest, world programmed into the game . . .

I feel like I started rambling there. Oh well, its still interesting to think about. Of course, I could be completely wrong about any little thing here, but, then again, it's just a theory.

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