Many things you will hear of San Jose, but many things can only be revealed by living here. Admittedly it doesn’t posses the best architecture, music, or art scene… but there is a truly deeper level to San Jose that those who live it will never want to give up. San Jose is an oasis in a world of turmoil, a place where who you love is more important than who you know.

The root of San Jose’s identity spawns from that of Costa Rica’s essence. A country so far unknown, so far removed from the world scene, but in its own little way, connected to very heart of global human existence. About 300,000 people call this city their home, and part take in an urban landscape not common elsewhere.

During its formation, San Jose was the last call, the far end of all empires. The Mesoamerican influence ended in Nicoya, and was also the northernmost point of the Chibchan peoples. When the Spanish arrived, Costa Rica was unfortunately deprived of the majority of its native population. The Spanish made way through the coasts into the highlands where they formed the small settlement of La Boca del Monte.

For the most part San Jose was forgotten and never given a proper place in the hierarchy of the new Americas. So much, that when Costa Rica achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, it took a mounted messenger a long time to bring the message down from Guatemala. The news wasn’t even that impacting, as Spanish influence wasn’t that major and people were pretty much undecided on what to think about the so called independence.

By this time, the population of San Jose rounded 5,000 inhabitants, and the economic engines were tobacco and coffee. San Jose was not originally the capital of Costa Rica, this was the southern city of Cartago. However, an odd law was passed where the capital of the country would rotate cities, and after some years and struggle, this law was ended and the seat of power remained in San Jose.

San Jose in these days took an economic boom, and became by any standards a ‘first world’ city. San Jose was one of the first cities in the world with electric lighting, and had a telephone system way before many of the large European and American cities.

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Filed under: Travel on July 24th, 2007