The Imperial Palace, also known as the Emperor’s palace, was a former Jedi temple that Darth Sidious—Dark Lord of the Sith and Galactic Emperor—transformed into his official residence on the Core World Coruscant during the reign of the Galactic Empire. The Palace was located in the Palace Precinct of the Federal District of Imperial City. Although it was purged of its Jedi heritage, the Palace retained its ziggurat form as well as its distinctive crown of four Council Towers and the central Temple Spire that contained the Emperor’s throne room.
The Jedi Grand Temple, also known as the Jedi Temple, was the home of the Jedi Order—an order of Force-sensitive peacekeepers united in their adherence to the Jedi Code and the light side of the Force—during the rise and fall of the Galactic Republic. In addition to its role as the central hub of all Jedi activities throughout the galaxy, the Temple functioned as a monastery for Jedi Knights and Jedi Masters as well as a school for the training of Padawans and initiates. As the headquarters of the Order, the Temple was the location of several key areas such as the Holocron Vault, which housed the Order’s closely guarded secrets; the Jedi Archives, the largest repository of information; and the Jedi Council Chamber, where the ruling Jedi High Council convened to ponder galactic events and determine the will of the Force.
Constructed by the Four Masters millennia before the proclamation of the New Order, the Temple was rebuilt and expanded several times over the centuries. It was built on the foundations of an ancient shrine that the Sith dedicated to the dark side of the Force. The Order’s role in the Clone Wars was directed from the Temple after the Jedi rallied to defend the Republic against the Confederacy of Independent Systems, commanding legions of clone troopers as Jedi Generals in the Grand Army of the Republic. In 19 BBY, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine—the alter ego of Darth Sidious—initiated the Great Jedi Purge through Order 66, which declared all Jedi enemies of the state. His Sith apprentice, the newly-anointed Sith Lord Darth Vader, marched on the Temple at the head of the elite 501st Legion. The siege of the Jedi Temple resulted in the deaths of many Jedi, including the younglings. Sidious, having declared himself Emperor, erased millennia of the Jedi Order’s ancient traditions by converting the Temple into the Imperial Palace.
The Emperor’s death in the Battle of Endor in 5 ABY caused the citizens of Coruscant to celebrate in the streets of Monument Plaza while Grand Vizier Mas Amedda and his supporters barricaded themselves in the Palace. Around the same time, the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker recovered fragments of a Force-sensitive tree that once stood in the heart of the Jedi Temple. In the final days of the Galactic Civil War, Amedda was placed under virtual house arrest in the Palace by soldiers who were loyal to Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax, the self-proclaimed Counselor to the Empire. He later escaped from the Palace with the help of a gaggle of children by the time of the Battle of Jakku in 5 ABY.