Minecraft WorldEdit Commands for Circles & Spheres — Full List

WorldEdit’s shape commands cover circles, cylinders, spheres, and domes, and the syntax is consistent enough across all of them that learning one makes the rest straightforward. This is the practical reference — every command a builder actually needs for round shapes, what each parameter does, and a couple of the flags that trip people up the first time.

Before any shape command: selecting a position

Every shape command below places its shape centered on your current position (or a position you’ve set with a selection tool), extending outward from there. There’s no separate “pick a center point” command — standing where you want the shape’s center to be, or using WorldEdit’s wand tool to mark a specific block first, is how the center gets set.

//cyl — cylinders and flat circles

//hcyl — the hollow shortcut

//sphere — full spheres

//hsphere — the hollow shortcut

//ellipsoid — ovals and non-uniform spheres

Quick command reference table

Command	Shape	Fill
//cyl	Cylinder / flat circle	Solid (add -h for hollow)
//hcyl	Cylinder	Hollow
//sphere	Sphere	Solid (add -h for hollow)
//hsphere	Sphere	Hollow
//ellipsoid	Sphere / oval (3-axis)	Solid
//undo	Reverses the last operation	—

Undoing a mistake

Setting a specific selection before a shape command

The commands above all center on your current standing position, but WorldEdit also supports selecting a specific region first with the wand tool (left-click one corner, right-click the opposite corner) or the //pos1 and //pos2 commands, then running a shape command relative to that selection instead of your position. This matters most for placing a shape at a precise location without needing to physically stand at the exact center point, which can be awkward for a sphere’s vertical center or a shape meant to float above the ground.

Choosing the right block parameter

Every command above takes a block type as its first parameter, and WorldEdit accepts more than just a single block name here — a comma-separated list like stone,cobblestone,andesite randomly mixes those blocks throughout the shape in roughly equal proportion, useful for a more natural, textured look on a large sphere or cylinder than a single flat material would give. Percentages can also be specified (80%stone,20%cobblestone) to weight the mix unevenly.

Performance considerations for large shapes

Large filled shapes — a big solid sphere especially — place a substantial number of blocks in a single action, which can cause a noticeable lag spike on a live multiplayer server even though the command itself completes quickly. Many servers that permit WorldEdit set a maximum region volume a single command can affect specifically because of this, so a command that works fine on a small radius may be rejected or throttled at a much larger one. Testing large commands on a private or low-population world first avoids surprising other players with a sudden performance hit.

Combining shape commands with masks

WorldEdit supports masks — conditions that restrict where a command’s blocks actually get placed — which can combine with shape commands for more targeted results. A mask limiting placement to air blocks only, for instance, lets a //sphere command carve through existing terrain without overwriting solid ground it passes through, useful for placing a decorative orb that should appear to emerge from an existing structure rather than replacing everything in its path.

Common command mistakes

• Forgetting the -h flag and getting a solid shape by accident. Every command defaults to filled unless -h is explicitly added — worth double-checking before running a large command.
• Confusing radius with diameter. Every WorldEdit shape command takes a radius, not a diameter — a “20-block circle” in conversation usually means a 20-block diameter, which is a radius of 10 in the actual command.
• Standing in the wrong position before running the command. Since shapes center on your current position, moving even slightly between setting up and running the command shifts the whole shape off from where it was intended.
• Running a large filled command on a live server without checking permissions or volume limits first. This can trigger a server-side rejection or, worse, a genuine performance issue for other players.

Why this list stays useful even with a generator

A browser blueprint tool confirms the size and shape before committing — the radius, the block count, whether odd or even suits the center point — but it doesn’t place blocks in the game. Once that planning is done, this command list is what turns the confirmed numbers into an actual instant build for anyone with WorldEdit access, which is exactly the planning-then-placement split described elsewhere on this site as the most efficient way to combine the two tools.

A worked multi-step example: tower and dome by command

Consider building a 15-block round tower topped with a matching dome, entirely through commands rather than by hand. The tower shaft is a hollow cylinder run repeatedly floor by floor, or as one tall command if the whole shaft uses the same material throughout:

Once the shaft is placed, moving to the position at the top of the shaft and running a hollow sphere command with the same radius closes the roof:

Because a full sphere command places both the top and bottom half, the result includes an unwanted lower half buried inside the tower — in practice, builders either accept this (it’s hidden inside the shaft and invisible) or use a region selection and a cut command to remove the excess before it’s placed, depending on how much precision the specific build calls for.

Saving a confirmed design for reuse

Once a command (or a short sequence of them) produces exactly the right result, WorldEdit’s //copy and //paste commands, combined with a saved schematic via //schematic save, let that exact structure be reproduced instantly elsewhere without re-running the original shape commands from scratch. This is especially useful for a tower-and-dome combination like the one above, where getting the proportions right the first time took some trial and error — saving it as a schematic turns that one-time effort into a permanently reusable asset for the rest of a project.

Region selection as an alternative to standing position

For shapes that need to be placed at a location other than exactly where the player is standing — floating above the ground, positioned relative to an existing structure, or aligned to a specific set of coordinates — WorldEdit’s selection tools offer more control than relying on standing position alone. The wand tool (left-click one corner, right-click the opposite corner of a region) combined with //pos1 and //pos2 for exact coordinate-based selection lets a shape command operate relative to a defined region rather than the player’s feet, which matters most for precise architectural work where a shape needs to align exactly with something already built.

Comparing WorldEdit’s shape commands to vanilla /fill

It’s worth being explicit about what WorldEdit’s shape commands actually replace: vanilla Minecraft’s /fill command only places rectangular regions, with no built-in concept of a circle, cylinder, or sphere at all. Reproducing any of the shapes covered in this list using only vanilla commands means manually calculating and issuing one small fill per row (for a flat circle) or per layer (for a sphere), which is exactly the tedious, error-prone process WorldEdit’s dedicated commands were built to eliminate. A builder without WorldEdit access isn’t locked out of round shapes entirely — the manual method still works — but the difference in command count and setup time between the two approaches is substantial, especially at large scale.

Permissions and server restrictions to check first

Before relying on any command in this list for a real project, confirming a few things upfront avoids wasted effort: whether the server explicitly permits WorldEdit for regular players (many restrict it to staff or disable it entirely), whether there’s a maximum region volume configured that a large sphere or cylinder command might exceed, and whether the installed WorldEdit version matches the server’s Minecraft version closely enough that command syntax hasn’t changed between versions. None of the commands above are universal — they depend entirely on the specific server or singleplayer setup actually having WorldEdit installed and configured to allow them, so it’s worth confirming access before planning an entire project around commands that may turn out to be unavailable.