Aeons ago, this rare terrestrial giant was once a fertile land of dense forests, cradling a great ocean with dramatic moon-driven tides. What happened to change Jakku's climate is unclear. Researchers have found no clues that might suggest the nature of the cataclysm, but the results are conspicuous.

Jakku is now a burning land of rocky wastes and endless rippling dunes. Life adapted and carried on, as it often does. Nightbloomers, tuanulberry bushes, lichens, and spinebarrels cling to the shady sides of arid crags and reluctantly surrender their precious moisture to the skittermice and bloggins. Massive, lumbering happabores blazed a network of broad trails called the Pilgrim's Road, which connects the planet's meager watering holes. Despite its name, the trails are never used by the planet's enclave of Force-worshipping Anchorites but by the native Teedos and Uthuthma for purely secular purposes.

From the eerie spires of Carbon Ridge and the undulating desolation of the Goazon Badlands in the south to the nightwatcher-infested sands of the Sinking Fields in the north, Jakku presents the image of a stark and inhospitable desert. For thousands of years, it only attracted those who wished to escape their obligations and avoid the attention of the civilized galaxy. Jakku remained a remote wilderness until becoming a protected territory of the Trade Federation in Year 20.