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I wanted to build an OGame Death Star model in Minecraft, and I started doing it on the highest mountain I could find, for some reason... I built one third of it and blam, can't build any further! Why is that? Or is that a bug?

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Short version: Yes, but it's easy to change

The Minecraft world is 256 blocks (as of Minecraft 1.2) from top to bottom. Through modding it is possible to extend it, though. The reason for the height restriction is that the Minecraft world is made of 16x16x256 'chunks'. These are loaded into memory and rendered starting with the ones closest to the player. A 3D world of chunks (where the world is 'infinite' vertically as well as horizontally) is a whole lot more complex than a 2D world of chunks to manage, and optimizing for smooth gameplay would be a challenge. 256 is a convenient number that's a power of 2 (making it align nicely in memory).

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Thanks, that's a cool explanation. But come on, it's Java, nothing aligns nicely in memory. – Yannbane Dec 2 '11 at 17:47
The link to the height mod is dead (and also obsolete). Are there any mods for 1.5/1.5.1? – tombull89 Apr 10 at 18:07
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The height in unmodded Minecraft is restricted. From the bottom of the world to the highest possible point is 256 meters, or blocks.

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Btw, if you want to check at what height you are, press the f3 key and check the Y value displayed. – Kurley Dec 2 '11 at 17:03

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