I'm fairly 'meh' on Star Wars myself, but I love maps. Ran across this in my twitter stream this morning, and thought the Warheads (is that term at all still current?) around here would dig it.
There is an entire book published by Lucasbooks on Star Wars Cartography. This one is only a fan made version.
Yeah...the Star Wars "official" map I believe was first published in the Insider magazine a few years back? Aside from the Atlas, it has also been used in the Ultimate Visual Dictionary and other reference books.
Kamino is awful close to Tatooine... I got the impression from the films that Kamino is remote, far enough that no one would miss it if they weren't looking for it.
Well, it's supposed to be "beyond the Outer Rim", though that isn't exactly conveyed by the map... it's an extragalactic planet in that it's somewhat off the main galactic disc, but then again the map doesn't show 3 dimensions so that could have something to do with it.
I was a little surprised myself when I saw how close Kamino and Geonosis were supposed to be to Tatooine, but as far back as 1977 we knew that Luke's homeworld was in the boondocks of the galaxy and far from most of the action. Kamino is described as being out beyond the Outer Rim and beyond the Rishi Maze. I have to confess at being mystified by some maps that showed Hutt Space being even bigger than the Galactic Empire, though. That never made any sense seeing as how Palpatine's realm was supposed to encompass a huge chunk of that galaxy with Coruscant being at the center of the Empire in much the same way it was at the heart of the Old Republic.
We know from AOTC that Tatooine and Geonosis have got to be close. Padme says that they are less than a parsec apart. ( Which I find somewhat unlikely for the Outer Rim but not impossible. ) I wouldn't call it beyond the Rishi Maze; it's more like "between" the Outer Rim and the Rishi Maze. http://ladymanson.com/galleries/movies/MoviesRS/displayimage.php?pid=127607&fullsize=1
One of the nice things they did with the NJO novels was to have a galactic map in the books. It helped make sense of how wide spread the conflict was.
You might not say Kamino's beyond the Rishi Maze, but Dexter Jettster in the movie did. It wouldn't be the first time graphics and reference materials didn't support the movie dialogue or vice versa, though.
Were those New Jedi Order-era maps? By that time the Empire has shrunk to twelve sectors, so it would be smaller than the Hutt claims.
They could have been, though I remember one of them was included with a special issue of the Star Wars Insider around the time of Episode II or III. It's the map where Muunilist is one of the primary star systems of the Empire and Coruscant isn't included within Imperial borders.
Since you mention Muunilist, it's probably a map of the Imperial Remnant. Naturally the Hutts are going to have more territory since they weren't losing so much territory to the Republic. I don't think a greasy cafe owner of questionable background should be the definite source of cartographic information.
This is from AOTC: The only features are that a) it's beyond the Outer Rim b) outside the Rishi Maze.
I stand corrected on the dialogue, then. Thanks for posting that. My Star Wars geekdom is strong but it occasionally fails me.
No disrespect to Wars fans (I am only a very casual one--I've seen the originals a few times, the prequels once each and haven't read a book except for Splinter in a Mind's Eye back in high school or jr. high [and that was only because I recognized the author as a Star Trek writer ]), but reading through this thread gives me great insight as to how very casual Trek fans would feel if they wandered into the numerous threads that delve into the series' minutiae found all over this forum.