Lakshmi Planum
What Lakshmi Planum is
Lakshmi Planum is a planum — a high plain or plateau — on Venus, 2,345 km across, centred at 68.6° N, 20.7° W in the Lakshmi Planum quadrangle. It is the 50th largest named feature on Venus and the 1st largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Indian goddess of love and war. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1979, under the theme it applies to every planum on Venus. Of the 4 features of this class catalogued on Venus, the naming categories run India (1), Armenian (1), Romania (Rumania) (1), Italy (1).
What it would take to settle Lakshmi Planum
Venus scores 43 as a world. That number is the same for every square metre of it — but sunlight, water, radiation and the ground under your feet are not. This is the same question asked at 68.6° N, 20.7° W.
What this spot has going for it is ground — flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across. What works against it is water — same as everywhere else on this world.
Computed from Lakshmi Planum's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 74% of the model's weight had a basis here, and 2 axes were dropped as not applicable to Venus (radiation geometry, earth link). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Venus and are already counted in the world's own index, not again here.
What this cannot see: elevation. Slope, local shadowing and the polar “peaks of eternal light” — ridge tops near the poles of a barely tilted world that catch sun almost continuously while a crater floor kilometres away never does — need a terrain model this does not have. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually why.