Hocotate is Captain Olimar's home planet.
The name "Hocotate" comes from Nintendo's headquarters' street address. The planet itself possesses a set of two intersecting planetary rings (which alone do not necessarily imply that Hocotate is a massive planet, as rings can form around smaller planets as well). In the opening scene of Pikmin 2, Hocotate can be seen with two neighboring planetoids, likely moons. Stars are visible from the surface during the daytime, indicating a thin atmosphere. In a possible reference to urban Japan, a building resembling a capsule hotel is shown.
Hocotatian people are around 2cm (3/4 in.) tall, about the size of a nickel. It it uncertain what sort of gas they breathe as a means of respiration, though oxygen gas is known to be extremely poisonous to them; Olimar and Louie must protect themselves while on the Planet of the Pikmin by wearing a spacesuit.
The technology is very advanced, as even minuscule Gluon particles have been utilized (evidenced by the Gluon Drive part in Pikmin 1). This makes it ironic that comparatively primitive human-made objects are considered valuable.
The currency of Hocotate is the Poko, a small type of coin that resembles those from the Super Mario series. Items from the Pikmin Planet are considered extremely rare treasures, and can be worth a particularly large amount of Pokos, many of which helped Olimar and Louie pay off their company's debt of 10,100 Pokos. (In comparison, 100 Pokos is more than a year's salary for the President of Hocotate Freight.)