The quiet, humid community of Plawal lies between steep cliffs of red-black rock and is run by Jevax, a Mluki who is Chief Person of Plawal. Rock "benches" leading up to the cliff walls provide a narrow foundation for homes and orchards. Most buildings are constructed from prefabricated units, and crammed together on small lots due to the rift's enclosed area. Residences in the old city were constructed directly over warm springs. A thick, sulfur-smelling mist permeates the valley, and can restrict visibility to just a few meters. Plawal's main docking silos are connected by tunnels to the Port Offices and to the rest of the city, including the canneries, the Brathflen Medcenter, Old Orchard Street, the seven main silk-packing plants, the MuniCenter, an import/export business on Pandowirtin Lane, and the Bubbling Mud cafe off Brandifert Court. Madame Lota's House of Flowers (a brothel) and seedy bars such as the Smoking Jets and the Jungle Lust line Spaceport Row. A house on Painted Door Street opens onto Plawal's vast network of subterranean crypts. These crypts, which contain xylen chips and gold wiring from the abandoned laboratories of Jedi Master Plett, were guarded by forgotten, mind-controlled smugglers under the Force influence of Irek Ismaren. Flora in the Plawal rift includes starblossoms, sweetberry vines, aphor trees, orchids, hanging moss, spider plants, shalaman trees, ferns, and Wookiee-beard. Fauna includes mooklas, salamanders, phosphor bugs, frogs, pittins, pellata birds, manolliums (brought from Ithor), watch-critters, and the insectile kretch that infest Plawal's tunnels. The storm-lashed, ionized atmosphere of Belsavis makes sensor probes and ship landings extremely difficult. Only one spot, called the Corridor, in the planet's southern hemisphere is atmospherically stable each day-- smugglers making the "Belsavis Run" come in at the Corridor and skim the ice to one of the unofficial landing pads on the glaciers.

Almost one hundred years ago, the Jedi master Plett built a house and laboratory in the Plawal rift that served as a safe haven for the Jedi and their families. Eighteen years before the Battle of Yavin, the Emperor commissioned the battlemoon Eye of Palpatine to wipe out the Jedi enclave but the ship never arrived. The Emperor's small backup force of interceptors bombed Plawal but were wiped out by Belsavis' Y-wings, and the Jedi departed for places unknown-- after erasing all knowledge of their presence from the inhabitants of the city. After their departure, Brathflen, Galactic, and Imperial/Republic arrived to dome the valley and cultivate vine-coffee and silk. Nubblyk the Slyte began blasting landing pads on the glaciers around this time, and the smuggling trade began in earnest. A small force of tariff police left by the region's Imperial Governor were little use against the smugglers. Brathflen built the first of the light-amplification domes over Plawal (based on Plett's original design) before the Battle of Yavin, and the three companies teamed with Kuat to install a central computer system. About a year after the Battle of Endor, the Slyte disappeared and was replaced by his associate Bran Kemple, which caused the Belsavian smuggling industry to dry up. In the same year, Roganda Ismaren (one of the Emperor's Hands) came to Plawal. Han and Leia Organa Solo visited Belsavis eight years after the Battle of Endor and uncovered a plot by Roganda Ismaren to forge a military alliance with the Senex Lords.

Lorahns
The planet Lorahns is controlled by a strict religious oligarchy of the Ffib sect. The bounty hunter Boba Fett once earned a 500,000 credit reward for capturing Nivek'Yppiks, a Ffib heretic wanted by Lorahns' leaders.