Where is Star Wars' 'Tatooine' filmed? Know the real locations of the desert planet

Star Wars is one of the biggest franchises around the world. Tatooine is a popular fictional desert planet that appears several times in various Star Wars projects including the recent Disney Plus series, The Mandalorian. Being a space opera franchise, it relies on CGI and VFX for various section. But many places in the movies/series are actually real locations, including Tatooine.

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Where is Star Wars’ Tatooine filmed?

Star Wars’ fictional planet Tatooine was extensively filmed in the Republic of Tunisia. It is located in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Several locations of the country were used to shoot different places in the movies.

Tatooine filming location

Ksar Hadada was where Tatooine: Mos Espa slave quarters were shot. It is a village in south-eastern Tunisia. Ksar Ouled Soltane was where the other slave quarter was filmed, it is situated 30km south of Tataouine.

The Mos Espa street set, where Qui-Gol Jinn and Darth Maul had a lightsabre duel, was shot in Onk Jemal, Tozeur. The location of Lars homestead in Tatooine was Matmata, a small Berber speaking town in southern Tunisia. Chott el Djerid near Nefta was also used as Lars homestead. La Grande Dune, Tunisia is the place where Tatooine desert was shot for the landing area of the escape pod of R2-D2 and C-3PO.

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Filming in Tunisia

Ajim, Island of Djerba, Tunisia, was used to filmed Tatooine: Mos Eisley Spaceport. Tosche Station of the fictional town was shot at Sidi Jemour, Island of Djerba. Shubiel Gorge, Sidi Bouhlel (or Sidi Bou Helal), is the place that was turned into Tatooine canyon. Luke Skywalker was attacked at the canyon by Tusken Raiders, even R2-D2 was abducted by Jawas at the place.

Although Tunisia acts as the major location where Tatooine was filmed, a few different places were also used. Several Tatooine desert scenes were shot at Death Valley National Park, California, The United States of America. The road to Jabba’s Palace in Tatooine was filmed at Twenty-Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley, California, USA. The shooting of exteriors of Tatooine took place at Buttercup Valley, Yuma Desert, Arizona, United States.

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Tatooine was first seen in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. The 1977 film features the location as the home planet of the Star Wars Trilogy protagonist, Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill. Spoiler Alert! it is also the birthplace of his father, Anakin Skywalker who later becomes the Darth Vader. Shots of the binary sunset over the Tatooine desert are considered to be an iconic image of the film series.

Disclaimer: The above information is sourced from various websites/ media reports including starwarsplaces.com, starwars.com, and, globaltreks.com