Star Trek: Every* Starbase Ranked Worst To Best
3. Yorktown
Yorktown Station is named after the ship that Gene Roddenberry planned to begin his trek through stars. The S.S. Yorktown was so-named in the earliest pitches for the series, before this was switched over to the U.S.S. Enterprise. The legacy of Yorktown has never quite left the franchise, with perhaps the brightest example here in Star Trek Beyond.
The station, a giant snowglobe in space, is a beautiful, if complicated design. Thanks to the use of artificial gravity on a mind-boggling scale, the station can host people in all sorts of directions, ups and downs, sides to sides. It it large enough, like many others on this list, to accept starships inside, leading to the frankly glorious shots of the Enterprise floating along beneath pedestrians' feet.
It was relatively well-armed for a deep space station, managing to fend off some of Krall's swarm, though in truth it was moments away from being obliterated before the Franklin arrived. Destroying such a beauty would be an utter crime, as is the thought that we as an audience may only see this station once. Existing as it does in the Kelvin timeline, it is currently unlikely to make an appearance in the Prime Universe, although with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy en route, one can still dream.