Minecraft wiki entry for Seed_(level_generation), associated text: Whenever the world generation algorithm is updated (usually by adding new biomes to the game), the same seed no longer generates the same terrain. If the seed or generator changes in a saved world, new chunks are based on the new seed and no longer match those from the old seed. In Java Edition, major (terrain-breaking) changes were observed with Alpha v1.2.0, Beta 1.8, 1.7.2, and 1.18. Deleted chunks can regenerate if the seed and generator remain the same, but changes if either the seed or generator changes. In fact, deleting chunks is sometimes done to let newly-introduced features appear in an old world; see Tutorials/Updating old oceans in 1.13 using MCEdit.