Random Biome Generator: 20 Real Biomes and 20 Invented Ones

One press gives a real biome with its climate, its life and where on Earth it is, or an invented one for a story or a game map.

Random Biome Generator: 20 Real Biomes and 20 Invented Ones

  1. Lantern abyss
  2. Wisp marsh
  3. Savanna
  4. Stream and river
  5. Mediterranean shrubland
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Tip: the space bar makes new ones.

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Random Biome Generator: 20 Real Biomes and 20 Invented Ones: how it works

Half of this list is on a map and half is not. Twenty cards are real biomes, 14 on land and 6 in water, each with its climate, its life and its place. The other twenty are invented for stories and games, such as Glass dunes and Uphill river, and each names the real biome it grew from.

Why lists of biomes never agree

There is no official count, so any random biome generator has to pick a scheme. NASA's Mission: Biomes teaches 7. The WWF scheme by Olson and Dinerstein splits the land into 14, and this page follows it under everyday names: its tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests are Tropical rainforest here. For water it adds the three freshwater and three marine types named by the University of California Museum of Paleontology. That makes 20.

Build a world from a real biome

Each invented biome is a real one with a single rule changed. Emberbloom scrub burns every summer and flowers from the ash. It grew out of the Mediterranean shrubland, where heat or smoke from a fire prompts many chaparral seeds to sprout. To make your own, draw a real biome, keep its rainfall and animals, and change one thing: the light, the scale, or the way the water runs.

Tips

  • Class quiz: tap Real biomes, then Hide all details. Read a name aloud and let teams give the climate and two animals before you tap Show details.
  • Artists: draw 1 and paint the view with only the plants on the card.
  • Game masters: tap Invented biomes, draw 3, lay them in a row and decide what sits on each border.

Questions and answers

Are the invented biomes mixed in with the real ones?

Only in the draw, and never unmarked. The 40 biomes are 14 real land biomes, 6 real water biomes and 20 invented ones. Every invented card starts with the words Invented from. Tap Real biomes to leave them out.

Which biome is the biggest?

It depends on who draws the map. On the WWF map used here, deserts and dry shrublands are the largest land biome, at about 19% of Earth's land. UCMP Berkeley names the taiga instead, a belt of northern forest that covers about 11.5%. Counting water, the ocean wins: UCMP calls the oceans the largest of all the ecosystems.

Can I use it to pick a biome for a game world?

Yes. The invented names are our own work, taken from no game, and free to use in a story or a campaign. A real card works too: in a building game, a taiga card means spruce trees and snow.

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All 40 biomes

Real land biomes 14

  • Desert Under 250 mm of rain a year, hot days, cold nights. Cacti, aloes, camels, kangaroo rats. Sahara, Gobi.
  • Flooded grassland Under water for part of each year. Water plants, waterbirds, capybara, caiman. Pantanal, Everglades.
  • Mangrove forest Warm coasts flooded by salty tides. Red and black mangroves, fiddler crabs, mudskippers. Sundarbans.
  • Mediterranean shrubland Hot dry summers, mild rainy winters. Sage, rosemary, thyme, roadrunner, scrub jay. California, Chile.
  • Montane grassland High mountain land, cool and wet in the páramo. Giant rosette plants, Tibetan antelope, kiang. Andes, Tibet.
  • Savanna 900 to 1,500 mm of rain, one wet season, one dry. Acacia, baobab, wildebeest, zebra. Africa, Australia.
  • Taiga Winter days near -20 °C, 200 to 750 mm of rain and snow. Spruce, larch, moose, lynx. Russia, Canada.
  • Temperate coniferous forest Warm summers, cool winters. Pine, cedar, fir, redwood, giant sequoia. Western North America.
  • Temperate deciduous forest -30 to 30 °C, 750 to 1,500 mm of rain. Oaks, maples, squirrels, black bears. Eastern US, Europe, China.
  • Temperate grassland -20 to 30 °C, 500 to 900 mm of rain. Grasses, bison, saiga. Called prairie, pampas, veld or steppe.
  • Tropical coniferous forest Low rainfall, moderate temperature swings. Pines, oaks, wintering butterflies. Mexico to Nicaragua.
  • Tropical dry forest Warm all year, dry for several months. Teak, monkeys, deer, parrots. Central India, Madagascar.
  • Tropical rainforest 20 to 25 °C, over 2,000 mm of rain. Palms, orchids, toucans, monkeys. Amazon and Congo basins.
  • Tundra -40 to 18 °C, 150 to 250 mm of rain and snow. Mosses, lichens, reindeer, Arctic fox. Alaska, Canada.

Real water biomes 6

  • Coral reef Warm, shallow salt water. Corals with algae inside them, fishes, sea urchins, octopuses, sea stars.
  • Estuary Where a river meets the salty sea. Algae, seaweeds, marsh grasses, worms, oysters, crabs, waterfowl.
  • Ocean Salt water in four zones, from the tide line to an abyss near 3 °C. Seaweeds, plankton, whales, dolphins.
  • Pond and lake Still fresh water, warm at the edge, cold in the deep. Algae, plankton, snails, fishes, turtles, ducks.
  • Stream and river Moving fresh water, cool and clear at the source, murky at the mouth. Trout upstream, catfish below.
  • Wetland Standing water in marshes, swamps and bogs. Pond lilies, cattails, sedges, amphibians, ducks, waders.

Invented fantasy biomes 20

  • Aurora taiga Invented from the taiga: the northern lights hang so low that they brush the spruce tops.
  • Chime woods Invented from the tropical dry forest: dry-season leaves harden like glass and ring in the wind.
  • Crystal cavern lake Invented from the pond and lake: a cold, still lake fills a cave walled with softly glowing crystal.
  • Drifting sky isles Invented from the montane grassland: mountain meadows ride on slabs of rock that float among the clouds.
  • Drowned city delta Invented from the estuary: a river meets the sea in the streets of a sunken city crusted with oysters.
  • Emberbloom scrub Invented from the Mediterranean shrubland: the brush burns every summer and flowers from the ash in a week.
  • Ever-autumn woods Invented from the temperate deciduous forest: oaks and maples stay red and gold all year and never go bare.
  • Fog reef Invented from the coral reef: coral grows in open air on a misty plateau, and fish swim through the fog.
  • Giant toadstool forest Invented from the temperate coniferous forest: toadstools as tall as firs shade a floor of damp moss.
  • Glass dunes Invented from the desert: old lightning fused the sand into clear ridges that hum in the wind.
  • Hanging jungle Invented from the tropical rainforest: jungle grows down the walls of a canyon with no floor in sight.
  • Lantern abyss Invented from the ocean: the deep sea floor glows like a night sky with living lights.
  • Moth-lantern pines Invented from the tropical coniferous forest: glowing moths winter in warm pine woods and light the paths.
  • Steam fen Invented from the wetland: hot springs warm a bog that stays wrapped in fog all year.
  • Storm savanna Invented from the savanna: lightning strikes every afternoon, so each tree grows a fireproof bark.
  • Tallgrass sea Invented from the temperate grassland: grass stands taller than a rider, and travelers cross it on stilts.
  • Tusk tundra Invented from the tundra: giant tusks and ribs stand out of the frozen ground like fence posts.
  • Uphill river Invented from the stream and river: the water runs from the sea up to a lake on the mountaintop.
  • Wandering mangroves Invented from the mangrove forest: trees on stilt roots step a little farther down the shore each tide.
  • Wisp marsh Invented from the flooded grassland: pale lights drift over the floodwater at night and lead walkers astray.

How this list was compiled: Real biomes (20 cards). The 14 land biomes are the terrestrial biomes of the WWF scheme (Olson and Dinerstein), in WWF order, as listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biome; each card uses an everyday name and keeps the WWF name in x.wwf. The 6 water biomes are the three freshwater types (ponds and lakes, streams and rivers, wetlands) and the three marine types (oceans, coral reefs, estuaries) of the University of California Museum of Paleontology, https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/freshwater.php and https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/marine.php, which also give the salt figure, the lake and ocean zones, the 3 °C abyss and every water plant and animal named. Temperature and rainfall ranges for rainforest, grassland, temperate deciduous forest, desert, tundra and shrubland, the tundra's permafrost and the Finnish origin of its name: the biome pages of NASA Mission: Biomes, https://science.nasa.gov/kids/earth/mission-biomes/ followed by biorainforest/, biograssland/, biotemperate/, biodesert/, biotundra/ and bioshrubland/. NASA gives the Finnish origin; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra gives Russian, perhaps from Sami, so the tundra note says both. Which land biome is largest depends on the scheme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserts_and_xeric_shrublands says that biome covers 19% of Earth's land and is the largest, while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga (11.5% of land) and https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/forests.php call the taiga the largest, so the desert and taiga notes give both views. Plants, animals and places for the land biomes come from the Wikipedia article for each WWF biome: Tropical_and_subtropical_moist_broadleaf_forests, Tropical_and_subtropical_dry_broadleaf_forests, Tropical_and_subtropical_coniferous_forests, Temperate_broadleaf_and_mixed_forests, Temperate_deciduous_forest, Temperate_coniferous_forest, Taiga, Tropical_and_subtropical_grasslands,_savannas,_and_shrublands, Temperate_grasslands,_savannas,_and_shrublands, Flooded_grasslands_and_savannas, Pantanal, Montane_grasslands_and_shrublands, Tundra, Mediterranean_forests,_woodlands,_and_scrub, Chaparral, Deserts_and_xeric_shrublands, Desert and Mangrove_forest, all under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/. An animal is named only where one of these pages names it, so the temperate coniferous forest card names none. All checked 2026-09-19. x.kind (real or invented) and x.realm (land or water) feed the two filter rows; an invented card takes the realm of the real biome it is built on. Invented biomes (20 cards). These are our own made-up places for stories and games, one built on each real biome (x.basedOn). They are not real, every one starts with the words Invented from, and none is counted in any statement about real biomes. License: own work. Licence: own work