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 centre 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.
Puntarenas is a province of Costa Rica. It is located in the western part of the country, covering most of Costa Rica's Pacific Ocean coast, and it is the largest province in Costa Rica. Clockwise from the northwest it borders on the provinces Guanacaste, Alajuela, San José and Limón, and the neighbouring country of Panama.
Alajuela is a district in the Alajuela canton of the Alajuela Province of Costa Rica, known as “The Capital of the World” by the locals. As the seat of the Municipality of Alajuela canton, it is awarded the status of city. In virtue of being the city of the first canton of the province, it is also the capital of the Province of Alajuela.
Barva is the second canton in the province of Heredia in Costa Rica. The canton covers an area of 53.80 km2, it is located in 10.020737°N 84.124116°W and has a population of 34,584. The capital city of the canton is also called Barva.
Moravia is the 14th canton in the province of San José in Costa Rica. The canton covers an area of 28.62 km², and had a total population of 56,919 people at the 2011 Census. The capital city of the canton is San Vicente.
Esparza is the second canton in the province of Puntarenas in Costa Rica. The canton covers an area of 216.80 km², and has a population of 34,291. Its capital city is also called Esparza.
Parrita is the ninth canton in Puntarenas Province in Costa Rica. The canton covers an area of 478.79 km², and has a population of 17,587. Its capital city is Parrita de Puntarenas.
Tres Ríos is the capital city of La Unión Canton in Cartago Province in Costa Rica. It is about 12 km east of San José and 11 km west of Cartago. It lies at an elevation of 1,345 m, and the estimated population is 9,484 people (2009).
Santa Bárbara is one of the six districts that make up the canton of Santa Bárbara, Costa Rica. The district of Santa Bárbara is commonly referred to as Santa Bárbara de Heredia, and is the seat of the municipality of Santa Bárbara, and therefore awarded the title of city. It is an important commercial and transportation hub, approximately seven miles from the provincial capital of Heredia and five miles from the provincial capital of Alajuela.
San Juan de Santa Bárbara is one of the six districts that make up the canton of Santa Bárbara in Heredia, Costa Rica. The district consists of two major neighborhoods: San Juan Arriba, and San Juan Abajo.
Purabá de Santa Bárbara, also called Zetillal or Setillal, is the sixth district of the Santa Bárbara canton in Heredia, Costa Rica. The district consists of several large neighborhoods: San Bosco (Bosconia), Marías, Purabá, Lajas, and Calle Quirós.
The Kingdom of Nicoya, also called Cacicazgo or Lordship of Nicoya, was an Amerindian nation that occupied much of the territory of the current Guanacaste Province, in the North Pacific of Costa Rica. Its political, economic and religious center was the city of Nicoya, located on the peninsula of the same name, which depends on several provinces located on both banks of the Gulf of Nicoya, as well as numerous tributary villages. In the 16th century, prior to the arrival of Europeans, Nicoya was the most important chiefdom of the North Pacific of present-day Costa Rica.
The huetares were an important indigenous group of Costa Rica, who in the mid-16th century lived in the center of what is now the country. They are also mentioned with the name of güetares or pacacuas. Huetares were the most powerful and best organized indigenous nation in Costa Rica upon the arrival of the Spaniards. During the 16th century, various chieftains dominated from the Costa Rican Pacific coast to the Atlantic Slope. The Spanish chronicles mention a myriad of towns and the kings that ruled them, among them the Garabito Empire, located on the Central Pacific Slope and the Tárcoles River basin, to the Virilla River and the Cordillera Central; the kingdom of Pacaca, in the current canton of Mora, and the Lordship of el El Guarco, in the current Guarco Valley, in the Cartago Province, to the plains of the Central Caribbean and Chirripó. Their culture belonged to the Intermediate Area, and it stood out mainly for their works in stone, such as metates, sculptures, tables and ceremonial altars; and the non-practice of anthropophagy or cannibalism. Its language, the Huetar language, one of the so-called Chibcha languages, became the Lingua franca of the country. Although this language is extinct, it survives in a large number of place names in Costa Rica such as Aserrí, Tucurrique or Barva.
The Empire, Domain or Lordship of King Garabito was a vast territory controlled by Huetar King Garabito and that extended through most of the Central Valley of Costa Rica from the Virilla River in modern San José to the Atlantic Slope in what is now the north of the country. Garabito's domain transcended the borders of the Western Huetar Kingdom where it had multiple vassal populations such as Coyoche, Abacara, Chucasque, Cobobici, Cobux, Yurustí and Barva, and also included several submissive peoples but not incorporated into their kingdom; the botos, tises and catapas.
Garabito was an indigenous king of the Huetar ethnic group, who approximately between 1561 and 1574 was a monarch of the Western Huetar Kingdom and its surroundings, in the current territory of Costa Rica. A 1566 document indicates that in 1561 he succeeded his grandfather, although given that in the indigenous kingdoms of the Intermediate Area of Costa Rica, matrilineal succession prevailed, it is more likely that his predecessor was a maternal uncle.
The Eastern Huetar Kingdom, also known as Lordship of el Guarco, is one of the two great kingdoms in which the domain of the Huetar ethnic group was divided in the Central Valley of Costa Rica and at the time of the conquest the king was Correque, son of the feared chieftain El Guarco. Although smaller than the fellow Huetar nation, the Western Huetar Kingdom ruled by Garabito as part of its larger empire. The eastern Huetar territory extended from the banks of the Virilla River to the slopes of the Chirripó in the Tierradentro. The area of the modern Paraiso Canton was governed by the vassal chiefs Abituri and Turichiqui, in addition there were aboriginal settlements in Ujarrás and Orosi that were visited by the Spaniard Ignacio Cota in 1561.
Pacaca, also called Pacacua, was a Costa Rican indigenous kingdom of the 16th century, whose inhabitants belonged to the Huetar people and culture and whose main seat was in the current Mora Canton, San José Province, Costa Rica, in the place called today with the name of Tabarcia.
Toyopán, was the name of an old indigenous chieftaincy of Costa Rica, which in the 16th century, upon the arrival of the Spaniards, was ruled by the king Huedo Yorustí. The territories of the former Toyopán cacicazgo included the current cantons of Vásquez de Coronado and Tibás, in the San José Province, and San Isidro and Santo Domingo, in the Heredia Province. The main settlement of Toyopán, the city of Apaikan, was in the current district of San Rafael de Coronado.
National Secondary Route 131, or just Route 131 is a National Road Route of Costa Rica, located in the Alajuela, Puntarenas provinces.
