How to Find Buried Treasure in Minecraft Bedrock

Buried treasure is one of those things that should be simple. You get a map, follow the X, dig down. But then you spend ten minutes digging up half a beach and find nothing. The map isn't precise enough to pinpoint the exact block, and that's where most players get stuck.

On Bedrock Edition, there's a trick that lets you find the chest in seconds. It involves chunk coordinates, and once you know it, you'll never struggle with treasure maps again.

Step 1: Get a Treasure Map

Treasure maps are found in two places:

Shipwrecks — specifically in the map chest (shipwrecks have up to three chests: supply, treasure, and map). The map chest is in the lower front section of the ship. Looking for a great treasure hunting seed? We've got one with an island surrounded by 4 shipwrecks, perfect for stacking treasure maps early
Ocean ruins — the larger ocean ruin structures have a chance to contain a treasure map in their chest.

Shipwrecks are by far the more common source. Sail along any coastline or swim underwater in ocean biomes and you'll find them regularly. They're partially buried in the ocean floor, sticking out of beaches, or sometimes fully exposed underwater.

Step 2: Follow the Map to the X

Open the treasure map and you'll see a rough outline of the terrain with a red X marking the treasure location. Your position shows as a small white dot that moves as you walk.

A few things about how the map works on Bedrock:

If you're off the edge of the map, your dot appears on the border. Walk in the direction the map indicates until your dot moves onto the map itself.
On Bedrock, the player arrow renders on top of the X, not underneath it like Java. So when you're standing right on the treasure, the arrow covers the X. This is by design, not a bug.
The map isn't perfectly accurate to the block. It'll get you close, within a few blocks, but you can't just dig exactly where the X seems to be and expect to hit the chest every time.

This is where the chunk coordinate trick comes in.

Step 3: The Chunk Coordinate Trick (Find It Instantly)

On Bedrock Edition, buried treasure always generates at chunk coordinate 8 on both the X and Z axes. Always. Every treasure chest in every world. This isn't a suggestion or a "usually." It's hardcoded into the world generation.

Here's how to use that:

Make sure coordinates are enabled (Settings > Game > Show Coordinates)
Walk to the approximate X on the map
Look at your X and Z coordinates
You need to find the spot where both your X and Z coordinates, when divided by 16, give a remainder of 8

The easiest way to calculate this: take your coordinate, divide by 16, and look at the remainder. If the remainder is 8, you're on the right position for that axis. You need both X and Z to have a remainder of 8.

Quick math shortcut: find the nearest multiple of 16, then add 8. For example, if you're around X = 200, the nearest multiple of 16 is 192, so the treasure is at X = 200? No. 192 + 8 = 200. Actually yes in this case. Another example: you're near X = 150. Nearest lower multiple of 16 is 144. So the treasure X = 144 + 8 = 152.

Do the same for Z. Stand at those exact coordinates and dig straight down. You'll hit the chest within a few blocks.

A Simpler Way to Think About It

If the math feels annoying, here's an alternative approach that works just as well:

Walk to the X on the map
Look at your X coordinate
Adjust your position until your X coordinate ends in 8 and gives remainder 8 when divided by 16. In practice, valid X values near your position will be numbers like: ...8, ...24, ...40, ...56, ...72, ...88, ...-8, ...-24, etc. (multiples of 16, plus 8)
Do the same for Z
Dig down

The chest is usually only 1-3 blocks below the surface, buried under sand or gravel. Occasionally it generates under stone on Bedrock, so if you hit stone, keep digging a few more blocks before giving up.

What's Inside Buried Treasure

Every buried treasure chest on Bedrock contains:

Heart of the Sea — guaranteed, one per chest. This is the only way to get this item. You need it to craft a Conduit, which gives underwater breathing and night vision in a radius around it.
Iron ingots — 1-4 per chest
Gold ingots — 1-4 per chest
Cooked cod or salmon
TNT — 1-2 per chest
Diamonds — possible but not guaranteed, up to 2 per chest
Chainmail armor pieces — rare, but this is one of the few ways to get chainmail in survival
Potion of Water Breathing — extremely useful early game

The Heart of the Sea is the real prize. Everything else is a nice bonus, but that one item is exclusive to buried treasure and can't be obtained any other way.

Crafting a Conduit (Why You Want the Heart of the Sea)

The Conduit is one of the most powerful utility blocks in the game and the reason most players bother with treasure maps in the first place.

To craft it, surround a Heart of the Sea with 8 Nautilus Shells in a crafting table. You can get Nautilus Shells from drowned mobs (they sometimes hold them) or by fishing.

Once placed underwater inside a frame of prismarine blocks, the Conduit gives every nearby player Conduit Power: permanent underwater breathing, night vision, and increased mining speed. It also damages hostile mobs. It's essentially a beacon for the ocean.

Using /locate Instead of a Map

If you have cheats enabled, you can skip the map entirely:

/locate structure buriedtreasure

This gives you the exact coordinates. Teleport or walk there, apply the chunk coordinate trick (or just dig at the coordinates the command gives), and grab your loot. As always, enabling cheats disables achievements.

Tips

Bring a shovel. You're digging through sand and gravel. Doing it by hand takes forever. A diamond or iron shovel makes the process near-instant.

Break the chest after looting. If you have another treasure map that points to the same chest, it won't update until the chest is gone. Breaking it marks that treasure as "found" and prevents future maps from sending you to the same spot.

Dolphins can help. If you feed a dolphin raw cod, it will swim toward the nearest buried treasure or shipwreck. It's not as precise as the chunk coordinate trick, but it's a fun alternative if you're exploring without a map.

Treasure can generate under water. The X might be just offshore rather than on the beach. If you can't find it on land, wade into the shallow water nearby and dig the ocean floor at the correct chunk coordinates.