Alajuela

Before the Spanish conquest the land around Alajuela belonged to the western Huetar kingdom, whose people were led at the time of the conquest by the chief Garabito. Spanish settlers arrived in about 1650, and a document of 1764 names the place La Lajuela, in the valley of Barva near the Canoas river. In 1777 its residents, ordered to move to the town that became Heredia, asked instead for a place of prayer of their own, and a chapel was built in 1782 close to where the cathedral stands today.

A town council was founded in 1813, and the settlement was called Villa Hermosa and then San Juan Nepomuceno de Alajuela before receiving the title of city, and its present name, on 20 November 1824. Its citizens took part in the fighting of 1823 over the young country's future, and in 1856 the Alajuela-born drummer Juan Santamaría died at the Second Battle of Rivas in Nicaragua, setting fire to the stronghold of the American filibuster William Walker. He was later recognised as the national hero, and his bronze statue was unveiled in the city in 1891.

The railway reached Alajuela in 1871, and the late 19th century brought a new barracks, a jail, the central park and its fountain, and the mango trees for which the park is known. Industry began with shoe factories; in the 1980s the city's first free-trade zone opened, and the airport on its southern edge made it the country's front door. In 2009 a magnitude 6.1 earthquake set off landslides in the hills to the north.

Juan Santamaría is at the heart of Alajuela's identity. His statue stands in the park named after him, the museum of his life and the 1856 campaign occupies the old jail and barracks beside the central park, the airport carries his name, and 11 April, the anniversary of his death, is a national holiday with particular meaning in his home town. Many studies have examined the true story of his life and death, but he remains the city's hero.

Football is the other great passion. Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, known simply as La Liga, is one of the two biggest clubs in the country, and its rivalry with Deportivo Saprissa of San José is the fiercest in Costa Rican football. It plays at the Alejandro Morera Soto stadium in El Llano, which its supporters call the Cathedral, and it won its 31st national title in the Apertura 2025 tournament.

The city's cultural life centres on the blocks around the central park: the Centro Alajuelense de la Cultura in the old town hall, the Teatro Municipal, whose facade is by José María Barrantes, the leading Costa Rican architect of art deco and neo-colonial building, and an international storytelling festival. Alajuela is also known for its weather, which locals like to call the best in the world.

The district of Alajuela had an estimated 44,374 people in 2022, and the city is the capital of the province of the same name and part of the Greater Metropolitan Area that stretches across the valley. Many residents commute to work elsewhere in the valley, while thousands of others come in each day to work in the city's factories and free-trade zones.

The economy has moved from farming to industry. The countryside around the city still grows coffee, sugar cane, maize, beans, citrus fruit, strawberries, flowers and ornamental plants, with poultry, pig and dairy farms; since the 1980s free-trade zones have brought factories, many of them making medical devices, and the international airport lies on the city's edge. The city is a transport hub, too, where routes from San José meet the roads to the Pacific and the north-west.

The centre is busy from early morning, with buses leaving every few minutes for San José and shoppers in the market. On Fridays and Saturdays farmers from the surrounding hills bring their produce to the weekly farmers' market west of the centre. The central park, under its mango trees, is the city's meeting place, and on match days crowds head for the stadium in El Llano.

Alajuela eats the everyday food of the Central Valley, and rice and beans are part of nearly every meal. Breakfast is gallo pinto, rice and black beans, with tortillas and natilla, a thin sour cream; lunch is a casado of rice, beans, salad, fried plantain and meat. The sodas in and around the municipal market are the place to try both, along with soups such as olla de carne, a beef broth with root vegetables.

The countryside around the city is farmland. The Friday and Saturday farmers' market brings in fruit, vegetables and other produce from the surrounding farms, in a region that grows strawberries and citrus fruit and keeps dairy herds. Tropical fruit is blended with water or milk into frescos, served with almost any meal.

Coffee is grown on the hills around the city and is the drink of the day, often brewed through a cloth chorreador, and tamales wrapped in banana leaf are eaten especially at Christmas.