Minecraft wiki entry for Mapping, associated text: As of Minecraft 1.8 the mapping system changed considerably. Overlapping maps are no longer possible to create at all. Each zoom level of maps has a grid that all maps now align to. The top left corner of each map now aligns to the (x,z) coordinate (-64, -64) +- (m,n)*size. Where m and n are any integer numbers and size is the map size (128 for zoom level 0, up to 2048 for zoom level 4). The most notable change is that maps no longer zoom out from the center as in version 1.7 but snap to the grid.