Alajuela

Alajuela is the second biggest metropolis in Costa Rica. It is also the capital of Alajuela Province. Because of its vicinity within the Costa Rican Central Valley, Alajuela is nowadays a part of the conurbation of the Great Metropolitan Area. The metropolis is the birthplace of Juan Santamaría, the national hero of Costa Rica and the parent who offers the name to the united states's primary international airport, that's south of Alajuela downtown. In pre-Columbian times the land in which the canton of Alajuela is today was a part of the Huetar Kingdom of the West, which become inhabited by using local tribes, who on the time of the Spanish conquest have been led with the aid of Chief Garabito. T

he first Spanish settlers set up settlements in the location in approximately 1650. In a letter of duty granted in 1864, the area is stated as La Lajuela in the Valley of Barva, near the Canoas river. In 1777, the dwellers of La Lajuela and Ciruelas, having been served with word to move to Villa Vieja, requested the provisional creation of a public region of prayer inside the residence of Don Dionysius Oconitrillo, of Spanish origin, 30 metres north of where Alajuela's cathedral is nowadays.