The Essential Atlas

"This is so much more than a revisit to the first edition Essential Guide to Planets and Moons."

- First Look: The Essential Atlas

The Essential Atlas is a third-generation Essential Guide written by Jason Fry and Daniel Wallace. It was published by Del Rey on August 18, 2009. The book contains planet profiles as well as extensive star charts.

Publisher's summary
Navigate the Star Wars universe as you never have before - with this fully illustrated, full-color guide that maps the entire galaxy.

''You know the planets - from Alderaan and Corellia to Tatooine and Zonama Sekot - and the star systems, from the Deep Core to the Outer Rim. But now, for the first time, you can pinpoint their locations and chart the travels of your favorite characters through the vast reaches of space. Star Wars: The Essential Atlas is a galaxy-spanning trove of vital statistics and information ranging from the astronomical and geographical ("Systems, Sectors, Oversectors and Regions") to the historical and political ("The Sith Empire" and "The Great Hyperspace War"). Encompassing the entire Star Wars canon, including all the films and the Clone Wars television series, plus the novels, comic books, video games, and more, this volume is packed with dozens of detailed maps and charts, as well as pertinent data and accompanying facts on'.


 * the Empire: its length and breadth, political regions, populations, trade routes, major attractions and trouble spots
 * the Clone Wars: the trajectory of this decisive conflict across the universe, data on key battles and major Loyalist and Separatist worlds
 * the Adventures of Han Solo: the heroic rogue's exploits throughout the galaxy - including his captaincy of the Millennium Falcon and his first, fateful meeting with Chewbacca - before his life-changing alliance with Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi
 * The Sith Wars: the progression of the universal clash between the ancient Jedi Order, their dark side counterparts, and the Mandalorian warriors who fought against both orders
 * and much, much more

From Hutt Space to the Unknown Regions, from the Knights of the Old Republic and Episode I to the Fate of the Jedi and Legacy era, Star Wars: The Essential Atlas is the ultimate gateway to space fantasy's most brilliantly imagined and endlessly intriguing galaxy.

Development
"When I was hired on to the Shadows of the Empire project, one of the first questions I asked Allan Kausch was if someone had made a map of all the planets in the Star Wars universe. He just laughed. There's no way; there's too many planets."

- Steve Perry

Dan Wallace assured readers of his blog that the book would be "light years" better than his previous book on the subject, The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons, which focused more on summarizing plots than on planetary descriptions. The book is "equal parts cosmology, planet profiles, political structure, colonization, history, the sweep and scale of wars, and bulleted lists presenting miscellaneous items of kewlness [sic]." Wallace also hoped that it would be closer to older but more detailed roleplaying game (RPG) resources like Platt's Starport Guide and Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook.

In another blog entry, Wallace stated he and Jason Fry planned to access Jason's Systems Database for use in writing the book and hope to include all 3900 placenames.

In February 2008, Dan stated in his blog that the book survived its first round of editing and was close to 120,000 words, but there were still many changes to be made and more maps to make. In addition he mentioned several items that may be in the book but has disclosed that they are not canonical until its publication, including the Kymoodon Era, the Leech Legion (a region within the Unknown Regions where blind berserkers resided), Cosm's Well (a region of neutron stars, pulsars, and blue stragglers named by the Zeku) and the Tetrahedron (which was the cradle of the Early Republic).

On February 24, 2009, Dan released more quotations from the book, as he was finishing its final stages of editing. Some names in the quotations include the Bedlam Pulsar (where omnipotent trans-dimensional beings exist in the stark whiteness that digests the fabric of hyperspace), the Planetary Pioneers (a program that, alongside the influence of the D'Asta family, allowed the New Territories to remain loyal to the Republic), The Ark of Baron Auletphant, the Zareca String (which was a jump from Rishi straight up and perpendicular to the galactic plane), and the Twenty Wonders of the Galaxy (assembled by Vicendi for his work Arturum Galactinum).

The authors intended for every canonical star system to be shown or else for its coordinates to be listed in an appendix. Systems from children's books, the RPG franchise, Classic Star Wars, and the Marvel Star Wars series were included. Due to its scope and formal nature, the atlas focuses on showing star systems rather than individual planets; this is in contrast to some previous maps, which due to artistic license showed planets within a system as two separate locations. However, according to Jason Fry, systems may generally be labeled by the name of their most prominent planets rather than by actual system names, since planet names are usually more familiar to fans.

Besides the aforementioned listing of planets, The Essential Atlas also supplied maps on various factions and time periods, and was given an in-universe history lecture. In addition, The Essential Atlas was the first to name the factions depicted in the comic series Dark Empire and Crimson Empire; specifically, the factions were named after the stories they originated in.

Behind the scenes
The authors recognized the community of the Star Wars fan wiki Wookieepedia in the acknowledgment section at the front of the book.

Nathan Butler, contributor to The Essential Atlas attributes Star Wars fan Eddie van der Heijden, webmaster of starwarstimeline.com, as the one responsible for deriving the Great ReSynchronization dates printed within The Essential Atlas.

There were a few typographical errors and inconsistencies in the book.
 * In the Table of Contents, it lists the section "Great Spacefaring Species" as "Great Seafaring Species".
 * On page 160 concerning spice, the Atlas mistakenly names Hutts Jiliac and Jabba as head of the Besadii clan, rival to the Desilijic Clan, however, Jiliac and Jabba are Desilijic clan leaders.
 * On the map on page 169, "firing" is misspelled "firiring".
 * On page 227, the Atlas mentions that Darth Krayt overthrew Roan Fel in 137 ABY. However he was actually overthrown in 130 ABY.