This jungle planet, known for its widely diverse and deadly flora and fauna, was best-known as the Wookiee home world, although there were legends that clakimed the Wookiees settled on Kashyyyk after travelling from another planet.

There were four main continents on the planet, separated by bands of ocean that were studded with archipelagoes. Despite its completely-forested appearance from space, about forty percent of Kashyyyk's surface was covered with water. Much of it was simply covered by the immense canopies of the native wroshyr trees. There was also a small region of desert near the equator.

Many xenoarchaeologists believed that Kashyyyk's abundance of both plant and animal life was the result of ancient manipulations by the Rakata race, which left behind several artifacts on Kashyyyk that might have caused changes in the way life was evolving on the planet.

The Wookiees lived in huge tree cities built to elevate them from the dangerous lower levels of the jungle. The Wookies discovered that the jungle had seven distinct levels, each defined by the amount of light it received. The lower levels - designated first, second, and third - had plants which were phosphorescent, providing their own light. Wookiees never traveled below the fourth level.

The normal Kashyyyk rotational period lasted about twenty-six standard hours, while its year lasted 381 local days. Kashyyyk was located in the Sumitra Sector, and had three moons. Because the world had no axial tilt and maintained a nearly circular orbit around its star, Kashyyyk experienced very little seasonal change, and the climate remained constant throughout the year.

During the height of the Clone Wars, Kashyyyk was considered an important world to both sides of the conflict because it was the primary navigation point for travel into the southwest quadrant of the galaxy. Some sixty years later, Kashyyyk was once again at the forefront of a galactic civil war, this time between the Galactic Alliance and The Confederation. The Jedi Order had defected from the Alliance and regrouped at Kashyyyk, prompting Jacen Solo to attack the planet without provocation. He chose to send turbolaser fire into the jungles, burning trees in an effort to force the Wookiees to surrender the Jedi, or become an example of what would happen to other planets that stood in his way.

The attack was thwarted when the Wookiee defenders were joined by the Jedi Knights, as well as a Bothan-led force of Confederation warships. Their combined forces overwhelmed the Alliance's ships and drove them off, allowing Kashyyyk's forces a chance to recover. The turbolaser blasts that Solo had already sent to the planet's surface set off massive firestorms that burned through even the most humid jungles, leaving devastated and charred landsacpe in their wake. Confederation starships assisted civilian vessels in controlling the blazes, using their own turbolasers to create controlled burns.

Source Abbreviations Listing - E4, HTTE, HTSB, REB, DK, RD, GMR4, IS3, SWCL, NECH, NEGA, LF6, CHRN2, LF7