San José is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica, and the capital of the province of the same name. It is in the center of the country, in the mid-west of the Central Valley, within San José Canton. San José is Costa Rica's seat of national government, focal point of political and economic activity, and major transportation hub. San José Canton's population was 288,054 in 2011, and San José's municipal land area is 44.2 square kilometers, with an estimated 333,980 residents in 2015. Together with several other cantons of the central valley, including Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago, it forms the country's Greater Metropolitan Area, with an estimated population of over 2 million in 2017. The city is named in honor of Joseph of Nazareth.
Alajuela is a province of Costa Rica. It is located in the north-central part of the country, bordering Nicaragua to the north. It also borders the provinces of Heredia to the east, San José to the south, Puntarenas to the southwest and Guanacaste to the west. As of 2011, the province had a population of 885,571. Alajuela is composed of 16 cantons, which are divided into 111 districts. It covers an area of 9,757.53 square kilometers.
Rail transport in Costa Rica is primarily under the stewardship of Incofer, an autonomous institution of the state. Incofer owns the national railway infrastructure and operates virtually all freight and passenger services, which consist primarily of commuter trains through the highly populated Central Valley. The whole Incofer network is 1,067 mm narrow gauge, although there are several small tourist railways of other gauges.
The Valencia Metro derailment occurred in Valencia, Spain's third largest city, on 3 July 2006 at 1 p.m. CEST between Jesús and Plaça d'Espanya stations on the Line 1 of the Metrovalencia mass transit system. At least 43 people were killed and more than ten were seriously injured.
The Archdiocese of San José de Costa Rica is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Costa Rica. A metropolitan see, there are seven suffragan dioceses in its ecclesiastical province: the Diocese of Alajuela, Cartago, Ciudad Quesada, Limón, Puntarenas, San Isidro de El General, and Tilarán. Erected on 28 February 1850, the Diocese of San José de Costa Rica was elevated to an archdiocese on 16 February 1921. It is the sole archdiocese in Costa Rica.
Alajuela is a canton in the Alajuela province of Costa Rica. Its head city is the provincial capital city of Alajuela.
Santa Ana is the ninth canton in the San José province of Costa Rica. It is located in the Central Valley. The canton borders the Alajuela canton to the north, the Mora canton to the south and west, the Escazú canton to the east, as well as the Belén canton to the north east. The canton has the highest Human Development Index of any canton in Costa Rica as of 2021 with a HDI of 0.935.
The Greater Metropolitan Area of Costa Rica, is the largest urban agglomeration in Costa Rica, comprising areas of high population density surrounding the capital, San José, which geographically corresponds to the Central Valley and extended to include the Guarco Valley, where some of the cantons of the Cartago province are located.
Braulio Evaristo Carrillo Colina was the Head of State of Costa Rica during two periods: the first between 1835 and 1837, and the de facto between 1838 and 1842.
The Torre del Bierzo rail disaster occurred on 3 January 1944 near the village of Torre del Bierzo in the El Bierzo region of Spain's León province when three trains collided inside a tunnel. Although the official death toll was 78, and at the time it was estimated to be 200–250, the most recent study has estimated it at no more than 100.
The 2012 Buenos Aires rail disaster, also known as the Once Tragedy, occurred on 22 February 2012, when a train crashed at Once Station in the Balvanera neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The Brandsen rail disaster occurred on March 8, 1981, in Brandsen, a town in Buenos Aires Province in Argentina, when a passenger train carrying 803 passengers collided head-on with a freight train, killing 34 and injuring another 74. The train crash was caused by points failure.
Costa Rica’s municipal system is organized under the Municipal Code, the specific law that regulates the local governments. Municipalities are the second-level administration in Costa Rica after the central government. Each one of the 82 cantons of Costa Rica has a Municipality or Municipal Government constituted by a Mayor and a proportional number of members of the Municipal Council. Districts of each of the cantons also have their local authorities and representatives. Some of the services manage by local governments include; solid waste management, building and administration of local roads, parks, libraries and schools, recollection of municipal taxes and in some cases local security. Worth noticing that in Costa Rica city and municipality are not the same thing, as a canton can have several cities within its borders, generally as districts.
Joaquín Mariano de Oreamuno was a Costa Rican who led a coup in 1823 that attempted to make Costa Rica part of the First Mexican Empire. A few days later the imperialist forces were defeated by republicans under Gregorio José Ramírez in the Battle of Ochomogo.
The League War was the second civil war of Costa Rica, as a member state of the Federal Republic of Central America. It passed between September and October 1835 in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. Its immediate trigger was the repeal of the "Ambulance Law", the law that established the rotation of the country's capital among the four constituent cities. The most important consequence was the triumph of the city of San José over the cities of Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago, which allowed its consolidation as the capital of Costa Rica.
The Pact of Concord was the provisional Constitution of Costa Rica between 1821 and 1823, officially named the Interim Fundamental Social Pact of the Province of Costa Rica.
Interurbano Line, is a commuter railway line in Costa Rica, operated by the national public railway operator Incofer. The line connects the provinces of Alajuela, Heredia, San José and Cartago.
The 1953 Comodoro Rivadavia rail disaster occurred on February 15, 1953, in Punta Piedras, a beach resort near the city of Comodoro Rivadavia in the Patagonian province of Chubut, Argentina. It happened in the branch to Rada Tilly that extended alongside the coast.
The 1910 Costa Rica earthquakes were a series of destructive seismic events that affected Cartago, Costa Rica from 13 April to 4 May. The sequence began with a Ms 5.8 earthquake. The largest and most destructive in the sequence occurred on 4 May, measuring Ms 6.4. A total of 2,450 people were killed and the city of Cartago was severely affected.
