How to Get Gravel in Minecraft

Guide Java Bedrock

Quick answer: Dig gravel with a shovel from riverbeds, shallow ocean floors, stony shores and windswept gravelly hills, or from stone-level gravel pockets underground. It is renewable through piglin bartering. Silk Touch always drops the block; without it there is a 10% chance of flint instead.

What you need

Shovel
Silk Touch shovel (to keep gravel)
Gold ingots for bartering (optional)

Step by step

Look in shallow water. Gravel generates in disks on the bottom of shallow water in most grassy biomes (not swamps), most often in rivers, flatlands and shallow oceans. One layer also generates in deeper water, most often in oceans.
Check windswept gravelly hills, where layers of gravel cover most of the surface, and stony shores, where it forms strips.
Mine underground. Gravel generates as ore-like pockets at all levels and in all biomes, replacing stone, granite, andesite, diorite and deepslate.
In the Nether, look along the shores of the lava sea (not in crimson or warped forests). The layers are one block deep in nether wastes and 3-5 blocks deep in soul sand valleys and basalt deltas.
Use a shovel. Without Silk Touch, gravel has a 10% chance to drop flint (1 in 7 with Fortune I, 25% with Fortune II, 100% with Fortune III) and otherwise drops itself. Silk Touch always drops gravel.
For a renewable supply, barter with piglins: a gold ingot has about an 8.53% chance (40 in 469) to return 8-16 gravel.
Mind gravity: gravel falls if the block below is removed. Falling gravel landing on a torch, rail, redstone dust or a slab-like block breaks and drops itself, never flint.
Craft with it: dirt + gravel makes coarse dirt.

Java vs Bedrock

Gravel works the same in both editions as far as drops go. The underground ore-like pockets in the Overworld attempt 14 times per chunk (size 0-160).

Versions: Nether gravel layers are one block deep in nether wastes and 3-5 blocks deep in soul sand valleys and basalt deltas.

Frequently asked questions

Where do you find gravel?

In rivers, shallow ocean floors, stony shores, windswept gravelly hills, underground pockets and along Nether lava sea shores.

Why does gravel drop flint?

Gravel has a 10% chance to drop flint when mined without Silk Touch. Fortune III makes it 100%.

Is gravel renewable?

Yes. Piglins can barter 8-16 gravel (about 8.53% chance per gold ingot).

How do you keep gravel?

Mine it with a Silk Touch tool.

What does gravel craft?

Dirt and gravel craft coarse dirt.