Ahch - To Ahch - To was a planet mostly covered in water , with numerous rocky islands blanketed with green tree s located in the Unknown Regions . It was the birthplace of the Jedi Order and held the ancient Jedi texts . Three decades after the Galactic Civil War , it served as the home of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker who went into exile seeking the first Jedi Temple after his Jedi students were killed by Kylo Ren . After the Resistance pieced together two map fragments to reveal Skywalker ' s location , Rey traveled to Ahch - To in the " Millennium Falcon " accompanied by R2 - D2 and Chewbacca , in search of him . Description . From space , Ahch - To appeared to be a world of nothing but deep blue ocean s orbiting twin stars . Dotting the oceans , however , were rocky island archipelagos covered with green tree s and grass , where bird s such as Porg s would congregate . The first Jedi Temple was built on one such island , known as Temple Island . By the time of the conflict between the First Order and the Resistance , Temple Island was dotted with Jedi ruins . The planet was the homeworld of a large variety of creatures , such as the mysterious Lanai and the large thala - siren . It was also inhabited by Caretakers , who cleaned the huts dotting the islands . History . Ahch - To was the birthplace of the Jedi Order . Before the Jedi Purge and the Age of the Empire , Jedi scholar s argued that a number of locations could be considered the birthplace of the Order . The scholars argued that Ahch - To , Tython , Coruscant , Jedha , and Ossus could all be considered candidate worlds for the Order ' s birth and the location of the first Jedi temple . Despite much deliberation , however , the location of the first Jedi temple was a mystery by the time the Galactic Civil War came to a close . Following the failed attempt by Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to rebuild the Jedi Order , Skywalker vanished and went in search of the first Jedi temple . He entered into a self - imposed exile on Ahch - To , residing on an island with stone ruins . As the Resistance began its fight against the First Order , General Leia Organa , Skywalker ' s sister , hoped to find her brother and bring him back into the fight against the dark side . She sent Commander Poe Dameron to Jakku , where he retrieved a partial map held by Lor San Tekka that gave part of the direction to Ahch - To . Later , after the partial map was given to the Resistance , Skywalker ' s astromech droid R2 - D2 , who had been in low power mode since Skywalker ' s exile , returned to full power and provided the rest of the map to Ahch - To . R2 - D2 unknowingly had the map in his databanks for many years , having found it in the network of the Galactic Empire aboard the Death Star during the Galactic Civil War . Rey , a young Force - sensitive scavenger , took the map and traveled to Ahch - To , where she found Skywalker in his exile . After training Rey , Skywalker opted to remain on the planet rather than travel to Crait to fight the First Order . After being visited by the spirit of Jedi Master Yoda , Skywalker projected himself to Crait to interact with the Resistance and with his fallen pupil Kylo Ren . Projecting himself required a massive amount of Force energy and ultimately led to his demise , although Luke found inner peace and purpose in his final moments as he gazed upon Ahch - To ' s binary sunset and became one with the Force . His sacrifice bought the Resistance enough time to escape from Crait and live on . Behind the scenes . The planet Ahch - To first appeared in the final moments of the 2015 film . The name of the planet was not uttered in the film , and instead was revealed in the script . Ahch - To , where Rey meets Luke , was filmed on site at the 6th century monastic settlement of UNESCO site , an island located off the southern coast of Ireland . Ahch - To was featured once again in , which released on December 15 , 2017 . This time , however , Lucasfilm built a replica of the monastic ' beehive ' huts atop the Ceann Sibéal headland in the nearby village of , , Ireland .