> Reference for creating your own Decentralized App

# Create a dApp

You can create your own decentralized apps (dApps) to interface with Decentraland's smart contracts and expose their functionality in more elaborate and friendlier ways.

## What is a dApp

A decentralized application, or dApp, is one that runs on a distributed peer to peer network rather than from a central server.

In the context of blockchain, a dApp uses smart contracts and possibly a P2P network, instead of a Web API service. A dApp may also expose a front end and cache information from the blockchain temporarily, but its output is ultimately reflected on-chain.

See [this site](https://blockchainhub.net/decentralized-applications-dapps/) for a more complete overview about dApps.

## Decentraland smart contracts

Decentraland has written and maintains a number of smart contracts that interact with LAND and MANA tokens.

LAND and MANA tokens themselves are defined by the _LANDregistry_ and _MANAtoken_ contracts respectively. The list also includes more specific contracts like creating an estate out of several parcels or mortgaging parcels.

* [Decentraland smart contracts](https://contracts.decentraland.org/addresses.json): You can find a full list of each of our contracts and their addresses.

Note that each contract has a production version in _mainnet_ and a test version in _sepolia_ and that each has a different address.

You can read the full code of each contract, as it's public information on the blockchain. For example, you can find the contract by name on [Etherscan](https://etherscan.io/contractsVerified) to read its contents.

## dApp boilerplate code

* [Boilerplate code](https://github.com/decentraland/dapp-boilerplate): This boilerplate code can be a starting point for building your own dApp. Note that this repository is archived and no longer maintained, so treat it as a reference rather than an up-to-date template.

## Helper libraries

While building our own dApps internally, we put together some helper libraries that you might also find useful.

* [Decentraland-dapps](https://github.com/decentraland/decentraland-dapps): This is a higher level library with common modules for dApps, actively used by Decentraland's own applications.
* [Decentraland UI](https://ui.decentraland.org/): This library contains a selection of reusable UI elements that are included in Decentraland's projects.
* [Decentraland-eth](https://github.com/decentraland/decentraland-eth): This is a low level library with utility functions to work with the Ethereum blockchain. Note that this repository is archived and no longer maintained.

## Sample dApps

Below are links to the full code of several dApps that we built around Decentraland, these might help you build your own:

* [Gate](https://github.com/decentraland/gate): This basic dApp creates an invitation NFT that was used when Decentraland was in a closed beta stage. In the early days, whitelisted players that held this NFT were the only ones able to enter the metaverse.
* [Marketplace](https://github.com/decentraland/marketplace): This is the full application that runs the Decentraland [Marketplace](https://market.decentraland.org/). To make it run fast, it requires a database and a backend server connected to the Ethereum network to create indexes with information about LAND.

## dApp testing framework

Before launching your dApp into production, we recommend testing it first.

* [dAppeteer](https://github.com/decentraland/dappeteer): We put this framework together to help you run tests on your dApp. Note that this repository is archived and no longer maintained.

## Decentraland smart contracts

In the following link you can find a list of Etherum smart contracts relevant to the Decentraland ecosystem. The list includes the contracts in mainnet as well as in other Ethereum test networks.

[contracts.decentraland.org](https://contracts.decentraland.org/links)