Where Was Star Wars Filmed? (Complete Location Guide for Every Film)

Quick answer

Star Wars has filmed at over 30 real-world locations across 12 countries, with Tunisia standing in for Tatooine, Norway for Hoth, Ireland for Ahch-To, Jordan for Jedha and Pasaana, Italy for Naboo, and UK studios (Elstree, Pinewood, Leavesden) for every interior since 1976.

The Short Answer

Star Wars has been filmed at more than 30 real-world locations across 12 countries. The shorthand cheat sheet:

Planet (in-universe)	Real-world location
Tatooine	Tunisia (Tozeur, Matmata, Nefta, Djerba) + Death Valley, USA
Hoth	Finse glacier, Norway
Endor	Redwood forests, Northern California
Yavin 4	Tikal ruins, Guatemala
Naboo	Caserta + Lake Como, Italy + Plaza de España, Spain
Geonosis	Plaza de España, Spain
Ahch-To	Skellig Michael, Ireland
Crait	Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
Jedha	Wadi Rum, Jordan
Eadu / Lah’mu	Iceland (Mýrdalssandur, Reynisfjara)
Pasaana	Wadi Rum, Jordan
Kijimi	Pinewood Studios soundstage
Nevarro / Tatooine (Mando)	Black Point Dunes, California + Simi Hills

Plus every interior shot in every Star Wars film since 1977 has been filmed at a UK studio: EMI Elstree (original trilogy), Leavesden (prequels), and Pinewood (sequels and Disney+ era).

Tatooine — Filmed in Tunisia

The desert planet Tatooine is the most-filmed location in Star Wars, appearing in A New Hope, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Most Tatooine exteriors were filmed in Tunisia:

Tunisian location	What was filmed there
Matmata (Hotel Sidi Driss)	The Lars family kitchen interior — still an operating Berber hotel
Chott el Djerid	The Lars homestead igloo dome — set still standing in the salt flat
Tozeur	Mos Espa exteriors (Phantom Menace) and twin sunset scenes
Nefta	The Mos Espa city set — still standing, regularly visited by fans
Ajim, Djerba island	Mos Eisley cantina exterior, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hut
Tataouine (the city)	The city that gave the planet its name; A New Hope establishing shots
Ksar Hadada	The slave quarters from The Phantom Menace

The planet got its name from Tataouine, a real city in southern Tunisia where George Lucas scouted in 1976. He simply transliterated the French spelling — Tataouine → Tatooine.

For A New Hope, Death Valley, California was also used for Tatooine — the canyon where Luke flees the Tusken Raiders and the Jawa sandcrawler scenes.

Hoth — Filmed in Norway

The ice planet Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back was filmed at Finse, Norway, in March 1979. Finse sits at 1,222 meters above sea level on the Hardangerjøkulen glacier and is only accessible by train.

Temperature during shoot: as low as -30°C
Mark Hamill’s frostbite-risk scene: the opening attack by the Wampa was filmed outside the Hotel Finse 1222
AT-AT battle plates: filmed on the open glacier with the snow walkers added later

Today, Finse is a Star Wars pilgrimage site. The Hotel Finse 1222 still hosts fans, and a small museum displays original production photos.

Endor — Northern California Redwoods

The forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi (1983) was filmed in the redwood forests of Northern California:

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park (near Crescent City) — most of the forest backgrounds
Smith River National Recreation Area — the Ewok village location
Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park (Humboldt County) — the famous speeder bike chase, achieved by mounting cameras on a Steadicam operator running through the forest

A 1987 windstorm damaged much of the original filming area, but the protected park is still accessible to visitors today.

Yavin 4 — Tikal, Guatemala

The Rebel base on Yavin 4 in the closing act of A New Hope (1977) was filmed at Tikal, the ancient Mayan ruins in northern Guatemala. The shots of the Massassi Temple were captured atop Temple IV, the tallest pyramid at Tikal.

George Lucas chose Tikal specifically because the temple ruins rising above the jungle canopy gave Yavin 4 an immediate sense of ancient mystery — no set could match it.

Naboo and Geonosis — Italy and Spain

The prequel trilogy expanded Star Wars’s location filming significantly:

Naboo (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith)

Location	What was filmed
Reggia di Caserta, Italy	Theed Palace interiors (throne room, queen’s chambers)
Villa del Balbianello, Lake Como, Italy	Padmé and Anakin’s secret wedding, lakeside retreat
Plaza de España, Seville, Spain	Theed plaza arrival scenes
Whippendell Wood, England	Naboo forest where Qui-Gon meets Jar Jar

Geonosis (Attack of the Clones)

The Geonosis execution arena was a mix of Plaza de España in Seville (architectural backgrounds) and CGI extensions from ILM. The interior of the droid factory was all soundstage work at Fox Studios Australia.

Ahch-To — Skellig Michael, Ireland

Luke Skywalker’s hidden island in The Force Awakens (2015) and The Last Jedi (2017) was filmed at Skellig Michael, a UNESCO World Heritage Site island 11.6 km off the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland.

The 6th-century stone beehive huts at the summit are the real inspiration for the Jedi temple structure
Filming required helicopter access and was strictly limited to protect the island’s puffin colonies
Additional Ahch-To exteriors were filmed at Malin Head (County Donegal) and Brow Head (County Cork) when weather prevented helicopter access

Skellig Michael had a major tourism boom after The Force Awakens — visitor numbers tripled the year the film opened.

Crait — Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

The salt-and-red-crystal world of Crait in The Last Jedi (2017) was inspired by — and partly shot on — the Salar de Uyuni in southwestern Bolivia. The world’s largest salt flat (10,582 km²) provided the white surface that crackles open to red mineral when the AT-M6 walkers march across it.

Most of the Crait sequence was completed on Pinewood soundstages with the real Salar de Uyuni used for plate photography.

Jedha and Pasaana — Wadi Rum, Jordan

The Jordanian desert of Wadi Rum has done double Star Wars duty:

Jedha in Rogue One (2016) — the desert moon home to the holy city and Saw Gerrera’s partisans
Pasaana in The Rise of Skywalker (2019) — the Festival of the Ancestors desert

Wadi Rum’s massive red-sandstone canyons and dune fields also doubled as Mars in The Martian (2015) and several scenes in Dune (2021). It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Maldives also stood in for some establishing plates of Jedha city.

Eadu and Lah’mu — Iceland

Rogue One used Iceland for two key planets:

Eadu — the rain-soaked Imperial research facility where Galen Erso is killed. Filmed at Mýrdalssandur and Hjörleifshöfði, a glacial outwash plain on Iceland’s south coast.
Lah’mu — the volcanic black-sand farm where young Jyn Erso lives. Filmed at Reynisfjara black sand beach and the surrounding volcanic landscape.

Iceland’s volcanic terrain has since become a regular Star Wars stand-in for hostile, primordial worlds.

Where Was Star Wars Filmed in the UK?

Every Star Wars film since 1977 has been filmed at a UK studio. Interiors, sets, and CGI-heavy sequences are all built on UK soundstages:

Era	Primary UK studio
Original trilogy (1977–1983)	EMI Elstree Studios, Hertfordshire
Prequel trilogy (1999–2005)	Leavesden Studios (a former Rolls-Royce factory), Hertfordshire
Sequel trilogy (2015–2019)	Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire
Rogue One, Solo (2016, 2018)	Pinewood Studios
Disney+ live-action (2019–present)	Pinewood + Manchester’s “The Volume” LED stages

This UK production lineage is why so many British actors appear in Star Wars — and why Lucasfilm’s London office (Lucasfilm Ltd.) is the operational headquarters for the franchise.

Filming the Disney+ Era — “The Volume” Changes Everything

The Mandalorian (2019) introduced StageCraft, ILM’s massive LED-wall video stage at Manhattan Beach Studios in California. Rather than location filming, the show projects pre-rendered environments on 270-degree LED walls around the actors.

This means The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and parts of Obi-Wan Kenobi are filmed mostly inside a single soundstage in Los Angeles — with location plate photography from Iceland, Utah, and California composited into the LED backgrounds.

Notable exception: Andor (2022, 2025) deliberately rejected The Volume in favor of traditional location filming across:

Cleveleys, England (Niamos beach)
Little Marlow, England (Aldhani heist set)
Lanzarote, Spain (the Ghorman massacre planet in Season 2)
Pinewood Studios (interiors)

Star Wars Filming Locations You Can Visit Today

If you’re planning a Star Wars location pilgrimage, here are the still-standing real-world sites:

Site	Country	Access
Hotel Sidi Driss (Lars kitchen)	Tunisia (Matmata)	Operating Berber hotel
Mos Espa set	Tunisia (Nefta)	Free desert access
Lars igloo dome	Tunisia (Chott el Djerid)	Free desert access, requires guide
Skellig Michael (Ahch-To)	Ireland (County Kerry)	Boat tours, May–October only
Hardangerjøkulen glacier (Hoth)	Norway (Finse)	Train + ski/hike access
Tikal (Yavin 4)	Guatemala	UNESCO park, paid entry
Reggia di Caserta (Theed Palace)	Italy	Museum, open daily
Villa del Balbianello (Naboo lake retreat)	Italy (Lake Como)	FAI museum, paid entry
Plaza de España (Theed plaza)	Spain (Seville)	Free public plaza
Wadi Rum (Jedha/Pasaana)	Jordan	Bedouin-led desert tours
Salar de Uyuni (Crait)	Bolivia	Salt flat tours
Redwoods (Endor)	California, USA	Free state park access

Naming Characters in Real Star Wars Locations

If you’re writing fan fiction or RPG characters tied to specific planets, the real-world location often inspires the linguistic register:

Tunisia/Tatooine — Arabic, Berber, and North African phonetics (Tatooine, Jabba, Anchorhead)
Norway/Hoth — short, cold-sounding Norse-influenced names
Italy/Naboo — soft, vowel-heavy, Latinate names (Padmé, Naberrie, Theed)
Ireland/Ahch-To — Gaelic-rooted names with rolled consonants
Jordan/Jedha — Arabic and Aramaic-rooted names (Jedha itself echoes Judea)

Our generators and guides cover this regional logic:

The Bottom Line

Star Wars has been filmed in 12+ countries across 30+ real-world locations — with Tunisia, Norway, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Jordan, Iceland, Guatemala, Bolivia, and the United States providing the iconic outdoor planets, and UK studios (Elstree, Leavesden, Pinewood) providing every interior since 1977.

The Disney+ era has shifted much of the live-action production into LED-stage volumes in California, but the films and shows that go on location — Rogue One, The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker, and Andor — continue to use the same global filming map that George Lucas first scouted in 1976.

If you can stand in Wadi Rum at sunset, you’re standing where two different Star Wars planets were born. That’s the magic of how this franchise gets made.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where was Star Wars filmed?

The original Star Wars (1977) was filmed primarily in Tunisia (Tatooine exteriors at Tozeur, Matmata, Nefta, and Djerba), Death Valley California (additional Tatooine shots), Guatemala (Yavin 4 rebel base at Tikal), and EMI Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England (all interiors, Death Star sets, Falcon cockpit). Subsequent films expanded to Norway, Iceland, Ireland, Jordan, Italy, Spain, Bolivia, the UAE, and more.

Where was Tatooine filmed in Star Wars?

Tatooine was filmed in Tunisia across all six Lucas-era Star Wars films. Key locations include Matmata (the Lars homestead — actually the Hotel Sidi Driss, still operating), Tozeur and Nefta (sand dune exteriors), Ajim on Djerba island (Mos Eisley cantina and Obi-Wan’s hut), Tataouine (the city that gave the planet its name), and Chott el Djerid (the Lars igloo dome set, still standing in the desert).

Where was Hoth filmed in The Empire Strikes Back?

Hoth was filmed in Finse, Norway, in March 1979. The cast and crew worked in temperatures as low as -30°C on the Hardangerjøkulen glacier, accessible only by train. The opening scene where Luke is attacked by the Wampa and the Imperial Walker (AT-AT) battle backgrounds were captured at Finse. The hotel where the crew stayed, Finse 1222, is now a Star Wars pilgrimage site.

Where was Ahch-To filmed in The Last Jedi?

Ahch-To — the planet where Luke Skywalker hides in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi — was filmed at Skellig Michael, a UNESCO World Heritage Site island off the southwest coast of Ireland in County Kerry. The 6th-century stone monastery beehive huts at the summit are the inspiration for the Jedi temple. Additional Ahch-To shots were filmed at Malin Head in County Donegal and Brow Head in County Cork.

Where was Jedha filmed in Rogue One?

Jedha — the holy moon home to the Kyber crystal mines and Saw Gerrera’s partisans — was filmed in Wadi Rum, Jordan. This is the same desert valley that doubled for Mars in The Martian (2015) and for Pasaana in The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Specific Jedha shots also used the Maldives for outdoor establishing plates.

Where was Naboo filmed in the prequel trilogy?

Naboo’s exteriors were filmed primarily in Italy at the Reggia di Caserta (the royal palace doubling for Theed Palace interiors), Lake Como at Villa del Balbianello (Padmé’s wedding location, also Anakin and Padmé’s lakeside retreat), and Plaza de España in Seville, Spain (Theed plaza). The forest moon of Endor was filmed in California’s redwood forests near Crescent City.

Where was Pasaana filmed in The Rise of Skywalker?

Pasaana — the desert planet hosting the Festival of the Ancestors in The Rise of Skywalker (2019) — was filmed at Wadi Rum in Jordan, the same location used for Jedha in Rogue One. Production took place in summer 2018 across an enormous desert set with hundreds of local Bedouin extras and practical creature effects.

Where was Star Wars filmed in the UK?

Every Star Wars film since 1977 has been filmed at UK studios. The original trilogy used EMI Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire. The prequels filmed primarily at Leavesden Studios (then a converted Rolls-Royce factory). The sequel trilogy and Disney+ shows are produced at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire (where the famous "Stage 007" and Star Wars-specific stages are located). The Mandalorian and Andor have also shot in the UK.

Where was Endor filmed in Return of the Jedi?

The forest moon of Endor was filmed in Northern California, primarily in the redwood forests near Crescent City (Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park) and Smith River National Recreation Area. The famous speeder bike chase was shot at Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park. The Ewok village treehouse set was built on location among the redwoods.

Are any Star Wars sets still standing in real locations?

Yes. The Lars homestead igloo dome remains in Chott el Djerid, Tunisia, and is a popular tourist destination (though it requires regular restoration). The Hotel Sidi Driss in Matmata — used as the Lars family kitchen interior — is still an operating Berber hotel. The Mos Espa set in Nefta, Tunisia, remains standing and is regularly visited by fans. Skellig Michael in Ireland is naturally preserved as a UNESCO site.