Towny — a plugin for creating towns and nations in Minecraft

Towny — a plugin for creating towns and nations in Minecraft

Towny is a server plugin for Minecraft that builds a hierarchy of resident → town → nation on the server and protects land from griefing using a grid-based approach. In vanilla survival, protecting territory without operator permissions is impossible: anyone can destroy someone else's build. Towny adds this without manual administrator intervention — players establish towns themselves, claim plots, and decide who has access to them. It is one of the oldest plugins of its kind that is still actively developed.

Grid-based territory protection

The world is divided into squares of 16×16 blocks — so-called townblocks. The size matches a chunk and is independent of height: protection extends to the entire column of blocks from bedrock to the sky. When a town claims a townblock with the /town claim command, this plot begins to obey the permissions of the town or the plot owner.

The number of townblocks is limited. By default, a town can claim as many squares as it has residents, multiplied by 8. That is, a settlement of five players gets up to 40 plots. The space between towns remains wilderness with its own interaction rules.

A player founds a town with the /town new command, a wave of particles sweeps around the starting townblock 

Plot permissions

For each plot, the owner separately sets four types of actions: build, destroy, switch (levers, buttons, doors), and item use. Each type is set for four groups: town residents, nation members, allies, and outsiders. For example, allies can be allowed to open doors but forbidden to break blocks. The plot owner also adds specific friends who will gain access even when the rest of the town does not.

Plot permissions interface with four groups and action types, shown in chat

Residents, towns, and nations

Each town is led by a mayor, each nation by a king. Both appoint assistants who manage the settlement alongside them. The mayor distributes ranks to residents — for example, assistant or sheriff — and each rank carries its own set of rights within the town. Multiple towns unite into a nation, forming large teams on the server. Nations declare each other allies or enemies, deepening the division of players.

Server map showing several towns of one nation, output of the /towny map command in chat

Economy

If Vault and an economy plugin are installed on the server, Towny enables money mechanics. A fee is charged for founding a town, claiming plots, and creating a nation. The mayor sets a daily tax for residents, and the collected funds go to the town bank, from which only the mayor can withdraw them. A town within a nation transfers a daily contribution to the state.

A separate mechanic is upkeep: a daily payment just for the existence of the town and nation. If a town cannot cover it, it is disbanded. Upkeep artificially removes money from circulation and curbs inflation on the server.

War

The administrator enables the war mode manually. During this time, most commands are frozen, and block protection for towns in a nation ceases to apply. Each townblock has a health pool: when an enemy stands on it, health decreases, and at zero the town loses the plot. The goal is to capture the town's home block, where its residents spawn. The war modes themselves are connected via separate official Towny add-ons — they are not in the base plugin.

Config (file)

The full Towny config.yml contains over 2700 lines. Below are only the key parameters that are configured most often. The data storage format is defined in a separate database.yml file.

Conclusion

Towny gives players a structured land protection system with a hierarchy of towns and nations, and an economy on top of it. The plugin is suitable for survival and role-playing servers where community building is important, and less so for pure mini-game or anarchy projects.