Star Wars needs an interactive map

In a recent Tweet from Del Rey Books, they excitedly shared that in the upcoming novel Star Wars: The Living Force by John Jackson Miller will have something special included: A map!

I love maps in Star Wars books, and frankly, I want more of them. Sure, there's Star Wars: The Essential Atlas by Jason Fry, which is one of my favorite Star Wars books that I own. I pull out that thing constantly for work and for fun. It covers all the regions and stories from Star Wars Legends. However, that is for the Extended Universe stories and is missing new additions.

In the new canon, there have been books like Star Wars: Galactic Atlas, but that reference book came out in 2016. It's missing everything from The Last Jedi to present. No locations from Star Wars Resistance, Andor, Ahsoka, etc. are in there. The Resistance one specifically bums me out. As someone who plays a Gozzo in a Star Wars tabletop show, I'd love to know where Drahgor III actually is in the galaxy in realation to other planets and systems. There are also occasional additions like Pablo Hidalgo's recent reference book Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion which revealed interesting new information about Din Djarin's homworld. Still, it would be nice to have them all in one place.

With so many new locations and planets constantly added, it made me wish there was some sort of interactive map on StarWars.com that would update with each new show. The High Republic has added several new planets. Each book or comic that comes out, add it to the map! It doesn't have to be anything fancy either. For proof of that, just look over to a well respected fansite for the highest grossing media franchise of all time: Pokémon.

Serebii.net is considered one of the best Pokémon websites around. It's reliable, accurate, and trusted by fans. One of the best features is their Pokéarth section. It has combined most of the regions into one space, laying them out for fans to see how they are all connected. For regions that aren't connected to the main Pokéarth such as Paldea, Unova, and Kalos, those each have their own sections that are still easy to explore. The main map is nothing fancy. It allows fans to hover their mouse and click on a location, and it takes them to another page with information about it. That's it! It doesn't need to be anything more than that. There are also nice dropdown menus as well to find the region or route they're looking for. It's not a busy design, as its strength is its simplicity. This map was even featured in one of the Pokémon games.

I would adore it if StarWars.com had something like this on their website. Have the starting page be one of those big galaxy maps like in Jason Fry's The Essential Atlas where the mouse could hover over different regions. Clicking on the region, it would zoom in to show the planets in that part of the galaxy. Maybe there could be a little search box on the side so fans can type in the planet they want, and it will highlight it on the map so it's easy to find. With each new book, movie, or show, they could add it to the map. Perhaps the search box could also look up shows. If a fan types in "Andor," planets like Ferrix, Coruscant, and Kenari would shimmer on the map. Clicking on the Unknown Regions, we could go zoom in on the Chiss Ascendancy from the latest Thrawn novels. Perhaps there's the Purrgil hyperspace lane, which fast-tracks us to Peridea.

This map doesn't have to be fancy. Heck, it doesn't even have to be interctive. If there was simply a map on StarWars.com that every time a new planet was added they would slap a dot on there with its name so I know where the heck it is, that would be good enough for me.

However, I do understand that this would be a massive undertaking. There are hundreds of planets in a galaxy far, far away. Even coding something to where if a fan clicks on "Endor" on a map and it takes them to the Endor page on StarWars.com would be a tedious task for every single planet in the franchise. This isn't even taking into account locations not on planets like Polis Massa, which is a station hanging out in an asteroid belt.

I know it's a big ask, and we'll probably never get anything like this. But it's nice to dream that one day I could open StarWars.com, pull up a map, type in something like "Castilon," and see where the heck it is located not just in the Mid Rim but in the galaxy as a whole. Until then, I'll keep on using my copy of The Essential Atlas.