15 block circle in Minecraft

How to use it

1. Check the grid and the block count in the tool.
2. Open the row by row guide and start at the top row.
3. Place each row as written: skip the gap, then place the run. Only the top 8 rows are listed, the rest is a mirror image.
4. Download the PNG if you want to keep it open next to the game.

The 15 block circle in numbers

Fifteen blocks starts to look properly round. It is the size most people pick for a keep, a round house or a small dome base. The interior is large enough for a bed, a chest and stairs.

The outline of a circle 15 blocks wide is made of 40 blocks. That is 23 per cent of the 177 blocks in the full disc, so a ring is far cheaper than a floor. The ideal area of a circle with this diameter is about 177 square blocks, and the filled version differs from that by 0.2 per cent. The circumference of the ideal circle is about 47.1, for comparison.

Row by row guide for the top half

Start at the top row. Each line says how many empty blocks to leave from the left edge and how many to place. When a line has two runs, leave the gap between them empty. Rows below the middle repeat the same lines in reverse order.

1. skip 5, place 5
2. skip 3, place 2, skip 5, place 2
3. skip 2, place 1, skip 9, place 1
4. skip 1, place 1, skip 11, place 1
5. skip 1, place 1, skip 11, place 1
6. place 1, skip 13, place 1
7. place 1, skip 13, place 1
8. place 1, skip 13, place 1

The filled disc has rows of these widths from the top: 5, 9, 11, 13, 13, 15, 15, 15. Mirror them for the lower half.

Symmetry and straight edges

The diameter is odd, so the circle has one centre block and a single middle row and column. That makes it easy to find the middle: count 7 blocks in from any edge. The longest straight run is 5 blocks. Long flat runs make a circle look squarer, and short ones make it look rounder, which is why sizes like 13 and 16 look a little different from 15 even though they are close.

Block counts for walls of different heights

A round tower or wall repeats the thin outline layer after layer. These are the totals for a 15 block wide wall.

Building it without mistakes

Place a marker block in the centre first. Then place the four blocks at the top, bottom, left and right, each 7 blocks from the centre. The rest of the outline connects those four points. Build one quarter, check it against the guide, and copy it to the other three by mirroring. Count your first row before you build the rest, a single wrong skip shifts the whole curve.

For a roof or a floor, switch the tool to Filled. For a wall with no diagonal gaps, which matters for moats, pens and sealed rooms, switch to Thick and expect 16 extra blocks per layer.

Other circle sizes

• 5
• 7
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 15
• 16
• 20
• 25
• 30
• 32
• 40
• 50
• 64
• 100

For ovals or any size not listed, use the circle generator. To turn a circle into a ball, try the sphere generator, or the stack calculator to turn a block total into chests.

Block counts on this page are computed by the generator and are the same in every version of the game. BlockShapes is not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft.