After ten movies, one would think that theStar Warsgalaxy is a pretty big place, right? If you consider the many TV series, novels, comic books, and whatnot, then it gets even bigger. Now, Lucasfilm did us all a solid and released acomplete mapof theStar Warsgalaxy,an interactive masterpiece that reveals just how big and weirdly wonderful the galaxy far, far away really is. The whole thing was put together byStar WarsauthorJason Fry, who wrote not only the beautifulStar Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedinovelization but also manyreference books—like the one the map is based on, 2009’sStar Wars: The Essential Atlas—and a huge team from Lucasfilm and DK, and it will be updated asnew loreis released. It’s a treasure for the fans, really, who have beengeeking outabout it, and here are some interesting findings.
The New Star Wars Galaxy Provides a Fun Insight Into the Movies and Series
The first thing is distance. Every square on the map equals five thousand squared light-years, meaning thatthe whole galaxy spans a whopping 2.1 million light-years of area.It’s structured into eight macro regions:the Deep Core, the Core, the Colonies, the Inner Rim, the Expansion Region, the Mid-Rim, the Outer Rim, and the Unknown Regions. There are also “autonomous regions,” so to speak, like Bothan Space, Hutt Space, and the Corporate Sector. There are also five major hyperlanes, from which smaller trade routes unravel,making traveling possible.One of those passes throughTatooine, for example, and maybe that’s why this backwater desert planet is such a popular hive of scum and villainy, as it’s also close to Hutt Space. A similar reasoning can be applied to every other location in the movies.
InStar Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and his gang travel from Tatooine, in the Outer Rim, to Alderaan, in the Core, and then toYavin 4, also in the Outer Rim, but in a completely different direction.Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Backmakes the most geographical sense, with Hoth, Bespin, and Dagobah being relatively close in the “southern” Outer Rim. The craziest thing, however, is how, inStar Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, the First Order destroys theNew Republic—Ilum(a.k.a. Starkiller Base) is in the Unknown Regions, while Hosnian is in the Core. We’re not getting into math (yours truly is terrible with numbers), butlook at them on the map and imagine those energy beams travelingthousandsof light-years until reaching their target. The novelization explains that they actually “tear a hole” in hyperspace, but still. And don’t get us started onStar Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, because it only features planets in distant and separate corners of the galaxy.
It’s important to point out, though, that saying planets are “close” is still an overstatement, because those distances are actually immense. Many planets mentioned inAndorare in the northeast “corner” of the Outer Rim, but that doesn’t mean they’re close. Also,if the galaxy far, far away is anything like our own Milky Way, it’sactually a disk, meaning Z coordinates are also important. However, as Jason Frypoints out, the map doesn’t factor them. Healso notesthat there may be navigational hazards or a lack of routes between points we think are “close,” so traveling isn’t necessarily easy or quick, regardless of how physically close they may be. That’s probably why Mustafar and Dagobah are so close, and yet Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) and Yoda (Frank Oz) never bump into each other.
The New Star Wars Map Incorporates Planets From the Old Expanded Universe
Mapping theStar Warsgalaxy isn’t new, and there have been many maps going around since the late 1990s.TheStar Wars: Behind the Magicsoftware brought one of the first visualizations of the galaxy in 1998,although it wasn’t a proper map, and then, in 1999, the incredibleNew Jedi Orderbook series began, bringing one of the firstproper mapsof the galaxy and giving an idea of where the most important planets were. That was all in the oldExpanded Universe(now Legends), but the new canon map actually incorporates many of them, like Bastion, the Hapes Cluster, and Bakura. It doesn’t mean that the Legends stories are canon, butit’s a nice nod to fans who have been withStar Warsbeyond the movies since the beginning. Canon or Legends,it’s allStar Wars, and that’s what matters.
Speaking of books, planets in canon novels and comics are also heavily featured in the map.On the “western” side of the galaxy are the Unknown Regions, a place of heavy navigational instabilitywhere beings like Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) come from, in the Chiss Ascendancy. It’s such a difficult region to navigate that people who live there simply call it “the Chaos,” and traveling requires Force-sensitive navigators called “sky-walkers” (yes, we know).That’s also why planets like Ahch-To and Exegol weren’t mapped before the movies—no one really knew about them because they are in the Unknown Regions, which are nearly impossible to navigate. At the very edge of the Outer Rim in the “south” is Batuu, whereGalaxy’s Edgeis located. Now you can literally find your place in the Star Wars galaxy next time you visit it at the Disney parks.
The 10 Best Quotes From ‘Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope’, Ranked
“Use the Force, Luke.”
There are also a few planets outside the borders of the galaxy. Although these regions don’t have a proper name,they are usually referred to as Wild Space and tend to be even harder to navigate than the Unknown Regions. Besides planets like Lasat and Lira San, fromStar Wars Rebels, some say that’s also where the Rebel Fleet might be stationed at the end ofThe Empire Strikes Back. Speaking of borders, that’s also why planets like Kamino, fromStar Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, and Peridea, fromAhsoka, aren’t featured on the map—they are not in theStar Warsgalaxy. Kamino is in the Rishi Maze, a satellite galaxy, and Peridea, well, is way, way off.
The Galaxy Far, Far Away Is Bigger Than We Thought and Will Only Get Bigger
Along with the map, Lucasfilm also made available anextensive listof all the systems in the galaxy.There arefifty-ninepages of planets we never even knew existed, with detailed coordinates and sectors for us to check out and learn some even weirder things. For example, there are actually twenty-two planets with the suffix “-ooine.” Tatooine, Dantooine, Klatooine… There are also fifty-one planets beginning with “Ord,” like Ord Mantell, and six beginning with “Nar,” although we couldn’t find the most famous of them, Nar Shaddaa (a.k.a. Smuggler’s Moon). There are also planets with similar names, like Dagobah and Xagobah, or Mimban (fromSolo: A Star Wars Story) and Ninbam, and there’s even one named Coachelle, which is maybe where the best music festivals are held?
Besides all the weirdness, the map is incredibly helpful to storytellers in general, the kind of material thatreally should be usedgoing forward.Usually, geography isn’t a concern when aStar Warsfilm or series is in production, and the locations are determined retroactively, but new stories can now be written where location is an important factor. Think about how many great stories come with maps from the start, likeThe Lord of the Rings, for example, and how it givesactual dimensionto the story. The same can now be done inStar Wars. So, next time you’re watching or readingStar Wars, do so while checking out the map, but keep in mind that these stories and the map itself weren’t meant to necessarily make sense, just to be fun. Don’t bother counting how longhyperspace travels last, for example, because that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Instead, just dive in and have some fun.
