Settlements are plotted areas with 
Prestige greater than 10,000. A settlement consists of at least one Beacon, but may have many Beacons owned by many Citizens as long as they touch with more than two plots. The amount of Footfall granted to each Beacon in the Settlement is proportional to the percentage of total Settlement Prestige contributed.
The Citizen owning the Beacon with the highest Prestige becomes the 
Warden or Mayor of the Settlement. The Warden gets the privilege of naming or renaming the Settlement.
Settlements whose prestige is too small will not be classified at all and not be given a name.
A Beacon in the Settlement will show a ranking of up to the 5 top contributors to the settlement, and Settlements are visible on Worlds in the sky when holding a Totem. The Settlement with the highest Prestige will be granted the title of 
Capital on that World and shows up as a yellow indicator on the Compass.
Base footfall numbers are presented in the table below. This is modified by both the time since last visit and the total number of recent visitors. For example, someone visiting two days in a row will receive a 25% modifier for the second visit, but if your beacon has less than 5 visitors, it would get an additional 200% modifier. Using that example, with an Outpost, the formula for footfall would be 20c * 0.25 * 2 = 10c.
More information available in this spreadsheet.
| Prestige |
Rank | Footfall |
|---|---|---|
| 0 .. 9,999 |  0
| |
| 10,000 .. 49,999 |  Outpost |
20
|
| 50,000 .. 249,999 |  Hamlet |
30
|
| 250,000 .. 1,249,999 |  Village |
40
|
| 1,250,000 .. 6,490,000 |  Town |
60
|
| 6,500,000 .. 31,900,000 |  City |
80
|
| 32,000,000 and up |  Great City |
100
|
Prestige base values by block are as follows, but please note the modifiers explained below.
How prestige works[ | ]
Beacon prestige is calculated by adding together the base prestige value of all blocks within the beacon, and then applying a multiplier based on several factors:
- block variety (different types of blocks)
- exotic colors (colors from other worlds)
- chiseled blocks
- built vs unbuilt space (e.g. to discourage builds that are just a bunch of plots full of high prestige blocks)
I believe these are generally all calculated against the distribution of blocks in the beacon—so, in order to have a high multiplier, you need to maintain a decent balance of all of the above aspects.
Some specific numbers that we have today (from my understanding of the game files; my interpretation could be wrong here):
Variety: I’m not sure exactly how this one is calculated.
Exotic Colors: The multiplier for otherwordly colors caps out at 1.3x, if you have 30% or more of the blocks in your beacon w/ colors from other worlds.
Chiseling: The multiplier for chiseled blocks caps out at 1.2x, if you have 25% or more of the blocks in your beacon chiseled.
Built Space: The multiplier for built vs empty space caps out at 1.5x, if your beacon is 10% or less built (the rest being air)
The max multiplier (after combining them all) for a beacon is 2.5x.
See also[ | ]