If you’ve spent dozens of hours warping between star systems and scanning barren or lush planets, you’ve probably wondered at some point: are there cities in No Man’s Sky? I’ve put over 400 hours into the game since its launch, and I’ve stumbled on everything from tiny NPC outposts to sprawling, player-made metropolises that rival the size of small real-world towns. I’ve even helped build a small 12-building hub with a group of friends in the Eissentam galaxy, so I know exactly how these populated spots work. This guide breaks down exactly what counts as a “city” in the game, where to find them, and how you can help build or run one yourself.
Are There Cities in No Man’s Sky Official NPC Settlements?
The short answer is that the base game doesn’t have massive, pre-built urban cities like you’d see in other open-world games, but NPC settlements are the official equivalent of small towns. These settlements spawn naturally on nearly every inhabited planet, and they’re fully functional, dynamic areas that change over time based on player choices. You won’t find towering skyscrapers or dense urban sprawl in base game settlements, but they have all the functional parts of a small town: trade terminals, resident housing, job boards, and even a governing system that lets you vote on local decisions if you become the overseer.
The largest official NPC settlements can have up to 30 unique buildings and 100+ resident NPCs, which is as close to a pre-made city as you’ll get from base game content. Some settlements even have defensive walls and guard towers to fend off occasional sentinel attacks or pirate raids, so they feel lived-in and dynamic, not just static set pieces. The size of a settlement depends on the planet’s population level, so you’ll find bigger settlements on lush, low-risk planets than you will on frozen or radioactive worlds with small native populations.
Massive Player-Built Cities You Can Visit Right Now
Many players don’t realize that player-built cities in No Man’s Sky are far more elaborate than official NPC options, with some communities working on the same build for years. Since the game added shared multiplayer worlds and cross-platform play, groups of hundreds of players have collaborated to build sprawling hubs in popular galaxy systems, most often in the starting Euclid galaxy for easy access for new players. These cities have no official size limits, as long as enough players contribute their individual base allocations to the project.
You’ll find a huge range of features in these player-made hubs, but most well-maintained cities include:
Most of these cities are built in low-sentinel, high-resource systems so visitors can gather materials and explore without constant harassment. You can find links to their coordinates in community hubs, though you’ll need to be in multiplayer mode to see all the builds from different players. Some older cities might have parts that don’t load if the original player deleted their save, but most popular active hubs are maintained by large groups of players who refresh the builds regularly.
How to Find Cities (Official and Player-Made) in Your Playthrough
Finding official NPC settlements is incredibly simple once you progress a few hours into the main story. After you complete the Awakenings quest arc, you’ll unlock a settlement scanner that you can use from your ship or on foot to ping nearby settlements on any inhabited planet. If you don’t have the scanner yet, flying low over areas with high flora and fauna density will usually trigger a settlement marker when you get within 1000 units of the area. You can also find settlement maps from NPC traders at space stations if you want to skip the searching step entirely.
If you’re specifically looking for player-run cities in No Man’s Sky, the official game forums and social media groups are the best place to find up-to-date coordinates. Most players mark their city systems with custom beacons that are visible to all players in the galaxy map, so you can warp directly to them once you have the address. A quick pro tip: if you’re playing on a public server, sorting the galaxy map by “most visited systems” will almost always lead you to a player hub within a few warps, no external research required. You don’t need to be friends with the builders to visit, as long as the build is set to public.
Tips for Building Your Own Small City in No Man’s Sky
If you don’t want to visit other people’s hubs and would prefer to build your own, you can absolutely create a small city either solo or with a group of friends. Your first step is to pick the right location: avoid planets with extreme weather, high sentinel activity, or low build limit zones, as these will make long-term construction far more frustrating than it needs to be. Planets with “peaceful” or “tranquil” weather tags are the best choice for long-term city builds, since you won’t have to waste resources on weather shielding for every structure you put up.
If you’re building with friends, split up roles to make the process faster: one person can handle landing zones and public infrastructure, another can build residential and trade areas, a third can set up defensive systems if you’re in a system with occasional pirate or sentinel attacks. You can also claim an official NPC settlement first, then build extra custom structures around it to expand it into a full city, which lets you take advantage of the pre-existing NPC population and trade terminal without building everything from scratch. Note that base build limits apply per player, so the more friends you have contributing, the larger your city can get. You can also set your build to public so other random players can add to it over time, just be prepared for occasional silly or unwanted builds that you’ll have to remove if you want to keep the area cohesive.
At the end of the day, the answer to are there cities in No Man’s Sky depends on what you’re looking for. If you want official, quest-integrated population centers, NPC settlements are exactly what you need. If you want sprawling, creative hubs full of other players’ work, the community has built thousands of cities across every galaxy in the game. Whether you’re visiting to trade, get inspiration for your own builds, or just wander and see what other players have made, there’s no shortage of populated, bustling spots to explore when you get tired of wandering empty planets alone.
