Minecraft wiki entry for What_the_Far_Lands_are_not, associated text: It is likely that them occurring past the Far Lands is accidental. Their original positioning at 32,000,000 was likely done to make the Far Lands, then at 33,554,432, inaccessible without modifying the game. However, when terrain generation was redone, the Far Lands moved closer to their familiar position of 12,550,824, despite the boundary remaining at 32,000,000, meaning that the Far Lands were once more accessible, with the boundary no longer making them inaccessible as intended; it is likely that Notch would not have thought to check this at the time due to the distances being ludicrous. Fake chunks beginning in Alpha v1.2.0 (as opposed to the void seen in prior versions) are also likely unintentional, probably arising due to changes in chunk handling for biomes, the Nether, or both, and would have presumably also flown under the radar given their inaccessibility in normal gameplay without external editors.