Minecraft resource gathering/Copper

A real life copper nugget.

Finding copper

Copper is found underground in the form of copper ore veins. Copper ore generates between layers -16 to 112 of the overworld, although it spawns more frequently in the Dripstone Caves biome.

Copper also generates as a part of copper ore veins, which are rare underground terrain features that are made up of copper ore, granite and raw copper blocks. They generate above layer 0

Mining copper

Players must mine copper with a stone, or higher quality, pickaxe. Mining the block with a wooden pickaxe will destroy the block without giving any copper ore.

Each copper ore drops between 2 and 4 copper.

Refining copper

When a copper ore block is broken, it will drop Raw Copper, which will have to be smelted to be turned into copper ingots.

Crafting recipes that use copper

Putting nine copper ingots in a square using a crafting table will craft a block of copper, while three copper ingots arranged in a vertical line will craft a lightning rod, and putting an amethyst shard and two copper ingots together in a vertical line will craft a spyglass.

Versions

Copper ore was officially added to Minecraft in the Caves & Cliffs update (1.17).