Catan Board Generator — Balanced Random Board Layout

How to use the Catan board generator

1. Choose 3-4 or 5-6 players.
2. Pick your fairness rules (the defaults suit most groups).
3. Click Generate board until you like it, then copy the link or download the PNG.
4. Lay out your physical tiles to match, or play from the screen.

Under the board you’ll see each resource’s total pips, so you can tell at a glance whether ore or wheat is scarce this game. How to read the pip totals.

What the generator checks

Then every board is scored 0-100 and the six best opening spots are marked so you can see at a glance whether the table gets a fair start. The scoring method lists the exact weights; see the dice probability chart for the maths.

Why use a random balanced map?

The beginner setup gets stale quickly, and a fully random shuffle often stacks 6s and 8s together or leaves one resource almost unreachable. We measured it: in 200,000 random deals, 68.9% of boards put a 6 next to an 8. This generator re-rolls behind the scenes until every rule you picked holds, then picks the highest-scoring of 30 candidates, so each map is fresh and fair. Just how often a random shuffle gets it wrong? We measured it: 68.9% of random layouts put a 6 next to an 8.

What a Catan map generator actually does

It builds the whole island for you. For 3–4 players it places 19 terrain hexes in rows of 3-4-5-4-3, then deals the 18 number tokens onto everything except the desert, then adds the 9 harbors around the coast. The 5–6 player mode swaps in a 30-hex map with 2 deserts, 28 tokens and 11 harbors. Without a tool you shuffle tiles by hand and hope the ore isn't all in one corner.

Why this one builds a balanced map

Each click tests 30 boards and keeps the best one. Every candidate has to clear the same checks: no 6 touching an 8, no duplicate numbers side by side, at most one same-resource neighbour per hex, and a fair share of pips for each resource. A plain shuffle fails the 6/8 test 68.9% of the time across 200,000 simulated deals, so the checks do real work. The winning board also gets a 0-100 balance score, and the six strongest starting spots are marked so every player can judge the start.

It's also a Catan board randomizer

Press Generate board for a new seed and a fresh map under the same rules, so nobody plays the same island twice. Copy the share link and everyone at the table opens the exact board you generated. Download PNG or use Print to get a paper copy for setup night. From there, follow the Catan board layout to put the real tiles down. If you want the odds behind the rule, see random Catan boards. A plain hex map for a different game is a separate job, handled by the hex map generator.

Frequently asked questions

More tools & guides

For 3–4 players the 19-hex generator is the default; the 5–6 player map adds 11 hexes and 10 number tokens.