San Jose Costa Rica
San Jose was chosen to be the capital city of Costa Rica in 1824 (taking over from Cartago) with its first university, the University of Costa Rica, being officially opened just less than twenty years later in 1843, and still thriving today. Due to its original status as a predominantly Spanish colonial town, the architecture of much of San Jose is likewise Spanish colonial in style, itself immediately making San Jose look noticeably different from the capital cities of other provinces within Costa Rica.
Over three hundred and nine thousand people live in the immediate downtown area of the city of San Jose, with the overall population of the entire metropolitan being closer to just over a million. There are eleven individual districts within San Jose, from Catedral, El Carmen, Hatillo, Hospital, La Uruca and Mata Redonda, to Meire, Pavas, San Franscisco de Dos Rios, San Sebastian and Zapote.
The city's original primary industry was tobacco raising, but in the mid 1800s the coffee boom came to San Jose, forever changing the area into that of a middle class city.
