County of Fortune how to delete a settlement: you cannot. Settlements cannot be removed from the map. The destroy tool on the bottom toolbar, "Destroy Roads or Bridges", only removes roads and bridges, and the developers have said settlement deletion is not an easy feature to implement, that it will not be in the demo, and that it may — only may — appear in the full game.
County of Fortune how to delete a settlement: what you can do instead
- Demolish the buildings inside it. Hover the building in the settlement's Buildings tab and use the "-" symbol. Every building can be destroyed and replaced, including the starter building, and all the resources used to build it are returned. A settlement with all of its buildings removed is effectively an empty square. Changing production covers how the replacement works.
- Move it near its original site. If the site was the problem, moving the settlement is free.
- Rename it. Settlements, regions and cultures can all be renamed freely, which is often enough to make an awkward village fit the role you have in mind.
What a stripped settlement actually means
Stripping the buildings out is the real answer to "how do I get rid of a settlement". The site stays, the region cap it occupies stays, and what you build there next is completely up to you — a farm, a logging camp or a workshop. Changing production covers the mechanics of replacing a building, including the full resource refund.
One consequence is worth planning for: an empty settlement still counts against the number of settlements its region can hold, and a region that needs room for new villages has to grow first. Levelling up a settlement explains the region caps and the decrees that lift them.