Designation
Concept · Colony · Stellaris 4.5.2
Designation (colony) in the Stellaris encyclopedia: The Designation of a Colony determines its primary role, for example by enhancing the build speed of certain districts or the output of specific jobs.
Designation in the game's words
The encyclopedia entry as the game shows it in its tooltips; underlined words open their own entry or page here.
The Designation of a 
Colony determines its primary role, for example by enhancing the build speed of certain districts or the output of specific jobs.
If the Designation is not set manually, it is automatically assigned based on the available districts or buildings.
Entries that mention Designation
More in Colony
Source: common/game_concepts (concept_designation) and localisation/english, Stellaris Cygnus v4.5.2 (9776).