Koaan was a planet near Nar Shaddaa. It was temperate and had many green hills. It was home to the Galactic Research Academy. Whenever an exploration party discovered a new planet, they sent information to this facility for processing. Under the Galactic Empire, the processing was greatly slowed down and it was considered by some as a convenient source for uninhabited planets.
The anthropologist, Mammon Hoole, was familiar with the planet from his days working for the Academy, and in 1 ABY, traveled there with his wards in order to steal the location of an unidentified planet from the databases. However, the bounty hunter Boba Fett had infiltrated their ship and they were forced to abandon ship in an escape pod which crashed on the planet's surface. The smuggler, Platt Okeefe, was also visiting the planet for the same purpose and the two groups ended up both traveling to Dagobah from there.
While the planet had had little Imperial presence during the early years of the Empire's reign, stormtroopers were stationed there during the Rebellion, as part of its initiative to control every scientific facility.
While on Nar Shaddaa, Mammon Hoole described Koaan as "not far from here," indicating the planet may have been located in the Mid Rim, like Nar Shaddaa. However, in 2009, with the release of The Essential Atlas and its online companion from StarWars.com, the planet was revealed to instead be located in the Inner Rim.
- The Essential Atlas
- The Essential Reader's Companion