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Star Wars is quite famous for fitting the Single Biome Planet trope to a T (warning: TVTropes link). You have the desert worlds of Tatooine and Jakku, the Forest Moon of Endor, the woodland planet of Kashyyyk, the volcanic planet of Mustafar, the ice worlds of Hoth and Ilum, the cloud-world of Bespin, the mud-drenched Mimban, the all-one-city urban Coruscant, Exegol where lightning rages all hours of the day, etc.

Within the Disney canon of Star Wars, are there any planets that are specifically known to not be single-biome? The closest I can think of is Naboo with its underground domed cities and more traditional above-ground cities, but there doesn't seem to be any indication that the climate is truly different in different areas, it's more of an "oh, we also built cities at the bottom of the sea because plot" thing. Ordinary seas and islands don't count unless there is a trope-breaking difference (that is, this question is about trope-breaking, not about biomes as they are formally defined in geology). Are there any planets that are either shown on-screen as having multiple biomes (e.g. desert and jungle; glacier and rain forest; grasslands, fungal forest, and tundra; etc.), or that can be shown to be multiple biome according to canon Disney works?

A canon reference could be something as simple as, "He set down his X-Wing in the tiny area near Tatooine's north pole where trees grew in abundance."

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    Minban also has swamplands as well as mud fields. Does that count?
    – Valorum
    Jan 22, 2019 at 19:39
  • @Valorum if the swamplands are shown or described in a canon (non-Legends) source, then yes. Jan 22, 2019 at 19:41
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    Soldier 1: "To the southern marshlands! Move out!" (Solo: A Star Wars Story)
    – Valorum
    Jan 22, 2019 at 19:45
  • We only see small little pieces of any planet other than Tatooine. Most of the others could be extreme multi-biome and we just don't know it.
    – Joshua
    Jan 23, 2019 at 18:26
  • What about Alderaan? (Or is the source non-canon?)
    – moooeeeep
    Jan 24, 2019 at 10:23

3 Answers 3

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Ryloth seems a pretty good fit. It has a wide range of 'biomes' seen in the canon Clone Wars series including some rugged mountain areas seemingly devoid of life as well as jungles.

TERRAIN: Jungles, Mesas, Valleys, Volcanoes

Star Wars Databank

Person against a tree in the jungle

craters in a barren dusty brown area

view of planet from space, showing different terrains


You might also consider Jaresh. It appears in the (canon) book Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure.

We’re at war, Cracken had said, and Leia had accepted that. But now she wondered how much evil had been done, deliberately or not, because of that excuse.
Below the Mellcrawler hung the planet Jaresh, like a green jewel in space. As the yacht approached, Leia could see thin blue lines carved across the continents, marking a complex series of irrigation canals that brought water from enormous polar ice caps to the more temperate regions.

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  • I don't know...that's like one stand of trees surrounded by dry mesas. Though there is a big green splotch visible from space.
    – Adamant
    Jan 22, 2019 at 21:52
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    Is it just me who read "Terrain: Mesas" and heard it in a Jar Jar Binks voice?
    – Graham
    Jan 23, 2019 at 0:22
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Naboo

I know that you disqualified Naboo already, but I think that you failed to consider that we know that Naboo has large marshy forests (where the Jedi first met Jar Jar), and it also has large rolling plains (where the Gungans fought the droid army).

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    They all seem to be temperate. And within a fairly close proximity
    – Valorum
    Jan 22, 2019 at 23:23
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    Less a rolling plain, more like a badly-textured green carpet. But then Lucasfilm were years off the pace on CGI, back then.
    – Graham
    Jan 23, 2019 at 0:25
  • @Valorum The plains are near Theed. The marshes are near Lake Paonga, which contains Otoh Gunga. Since they had to travel through the planet core to get from Otoh Gunga to Theed, I think they must be pretty distant from each other, if not on opposite sides of the planet.
    – gormadoc
    Jun 17, 2020 at 17:20
  • @gormadoc - you've misunderstood the principle of the planet core. They didn't travel through the literal core, they went underground and traveled sidewards
    – Valorum
    Jun 17, 2020 at 18:50
  • @Valorum Unless they've made new material on Naboo that explanation is Legends now (where the biomes are split by the mountain range anyway); there's no description of what the planet core is and the caves have their own name now. It doesn't really matter if it's the literal core or not; for a short distance it would be better to go through the lake in the bongo and walk the rest of the way than take a convoluted path much deeper. At planetary radii and small depth the two arcs are pretty much the same, so every km down you just lose that km, even adjusting for speed and bigger fish.
    – gormadoc
    Jun 17, 2020 at 19:26
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I think Parnassoss, Phasma's homeworld. We start the book in the coastal area where the Skyre Clan leaves, we see the grassy plains where the Claw clan lives, the desert, the enclosed cities. It's a rather varied world as far as most Star Wars planets seem to be. And before the devastation we know it was similar to earth. This would include a variety of biomes around the planet. You can check out this video from Star Wars Explained that gives a background on the planet itself.

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