Star Wars Encyclopedia is a 1998 reference book written by science fiction author Stephen J. Sansweet, the director of content management at Lucasfilm.

The book defines, explains, and illustrates the characters, creatures, settings, objects, events, and concepts that appear in the Star Wars space-opera media franchise.

The book was expanded and updated in 2008 as The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, co-written by Sansweet and Pablo Hidalgo.

[1][2][3] According to Sansweet, he wrote the book from the in-universe perspective of a group of scholars writing about 25 years after the events of Return of the Jedi.

[5] Franchise creator George Lucas said in 2005 that he used the encyclopedia to see if names he came up with had already been used in the Expanded Universe.