Environments

The world of Terraria consists of eleven officially mentioned environment types, also known as biomes.

If you had a hard time finding these biomes such as the Floating Islands, you can use these tools to locate them.

Forests


Forests are where most of the trees spawn. Trees drop acorns when they are chopped down, which can be used to replant them. Natural caves may be found in this environment, although most are not more than 100 feet deep.

Monsters


 * Zombie (Night)
 * Doctor Bones (Night)
 * Demon Eye (Night)
 * Slime (Day) (Includes blue and rarely the purple variants of the slime)
 * Pinky (Day)
 * King Slime (Day)
 * Bunny (Day)

Deserts
Deserts are large sandy areas that are occasionally generated on the map. They have 2 types of plants: Cacti and Waterleaf, both of which are used in alchemy. The Desert is useful if you want a large amount of Glass.

Monsters


 * Vulture


 * Antlion

Ocean
Large bodies of water that spawn at both sides of the map. The ocean on the opposite side of the dungeon will have 1-3 treasure chests in it. But sometimes there are no chests at all.

Monsters


 * Goldfish
 * Crab
 * Shark
 * Jellyfish

Underground
Main article: The Underground

The underground consists of four layers: the dirt layer, the rocky dirt layer, the stone layer, and The Underworld.

Floating Islands
Main article: Floating Islands

Floating Islands are masses of land that appear in the sky. Just like forests, you can find trees and grass growing over dirt blocks, with some stone and ores in the ground. Each floating island also has a building made of copper, gold, or silver brick which contains a chest. In the chest will be a Shiny Red Balloon, Lucky Horseshoe, or a Starfury along with other various items.

Monsters


 * Harpies

The Corruption
Main article: The Corruption

The Corruption forms during the creation of a map at a random position. In most cases there are 1-3 Corruptions per map. The Corruption spawns higher-level monsters regardless of time and thus should initially be avoided by low-level players. Shadow Orbs can be found here in deep thin caves called chasms. These chasms can reach all the way to the stone layer. There are rumors of chasms reaching The Underworld. {needs proof}

Monsters


 * Eater of Souls


 * Devourer

Meteorite
Main article: Meteorite

Meteorites can spawn randomly when you break Shadow Orbs and will land on the map somewhere. Meteorite Ore can be used to make bars which can be used to make...


 * Meteor Hamaxe


 * Space Gun


 * Star Cannon


 * Phaseblades


 * Meteor Shot


 * Meteor Armor

Underground Jungle
Main article: Underground Jungle

The Underground Jungle is a very remote area of the world, residing deep underground. It is often found near or under the Corruption. Like Dungeons, these areas have few dead ends; however unlike Dungeons they are covered in plants. They have special items that are unique to the Underground Jungle which are found in Jungle Shrines, small buildings made of gold blocks that are spawned at random locations. You can often find a higher concentration of minerals like gold, silver, iron, and copper in the Underground Jungle.

On a medium sized world, you can find it by first finding which side the dungeon is on, then go and look for a Floating Island then dig straight down from the bunker there, if it doesn't work with one floating island, search for others because it doesn't always pop up first try.

After patch 1.0.4 it's possible on rare occasions to find an overground jungle, which indicates an Underground Jungle beneath it.

Monsters


 * Man Eater


 * Hornet


 * Jungle Bat


 * Jungle Slime


 * Snatcher (rare)


 * Skeleton (when the Underground Jungle reaches the stone layer)


 * Fire Imp (when the Underground Jungle reaches the Underworld)

Dungeons
Main article: Dungeon

Dungeons are enormous buildings found close to the edge of a generated world, spanning many layers deep. They are filled with treasure chests which contain unique items.

There is always one and only one dungeon in each world, although a player may create new worlds and plunder their dungeons to gain additional loot.

The Dungeon's upper level is home to an Old Man, which will turn into Skeletron should the player talk to him at night, or summon Skeletron Heads if the player attempts to enter the dungeon without killing him first.

Monsters


 * Skeletron Head (only if the player enters the dungeon without killing Skeletron first)


 * Angry Bones


 * Burning Skull


 * Dark Caster


 * Skeletron (guardian boss)

The Underworld
Main article: The Underworld

The Underworld is a hellish realm (about 3500 Feet below on Large maps and 1700 on Small ones) reachable by digging past the stone layer. It is very easily identified by its background of stone with veins of lava. The main structure is hellstone ore deposits surrounded by ash blocks, which are then surrounded by a lot of lava. Chests can be found here. Hellstone can be used to make molten tools and armor, making a hellstone bars requires 6 hellstone ore and 2 obsidian ore, but it's hard to mine a lot at once, due to the fire imps and bone serpents attacking.

Surface Jungle
Main article: Surface Jungle

The Surface Jungle is a jungle on the surface, containing trees that grow without the need to plant Acorns. Jungle Bats, Jungle Slimes and Piranha are some of the hostile NPC's that spawn there. This Biome was added with V1.0.4