Liberia

Liberia began without any formal act of foundation, as a hermitage built in 1769 where the roads from Rivas, Bagaces and Nicoya met. Travellers rested there, the shade of the great guanacaste trees sheltered them and their cattle, and the settlement took the name of the tree. Unlike Nicoya and Santa Cruz, which traded with the Costa Rican port of Puntarenas, the village of Guanacaste looked north to the Nicaraguan town of Rivas.

When the Partido de Nicoya voted to join Costa Rica on 25 July 1824, the people of Guanacaste chose to stay with Nicaragua. Only in 1826, after years of dispute, did the congress of the Federal Republic of Central America add the town to Costa Rica. It grew steadily, overtook Nicoya as the most important place in the area, became a villa in 1831 and a city in 1836, and in 1848 was placed in the new province of Guanacaste. On 30 May 1854 the city was renamed Liberia. In the same years the province was renamed Moracia after President Juan Rafael Mora Porras; after his overthrow in 1859 the province got its old name back in 1860, but the city kept its new one.

Liberia became a major centre of farming and cattle raising, and the Inter-American Highway brought more trade through it. Its nickname, la ciudad blanca, the White City, came from the white gravel once used for its streets and its whitewashed colonial houses. By the late 20th century the city had become a stopping point for travellers bound for the Pacific beaches, and the opening of a new airport terminal in 2012 confirmed its role as the gateway to Guanacaste.

Liberia is the heart of Guanacaste's folk culture, the province that sees itself as the home of Costa Rican tradition. The sabanero, the cowboy of the plains, is honoured in a museum of its own in the city centre, and horses, cattle shows and the tope, a parade of riders, belong to every fiesta. The marimba, a large wooden keyboard played by several musicians at once, and the punto guanacasteco dance are heard at every celebration.

A high point of the year is the annexation of Guanacaste on 25 July. Although the town itself joined Costa Rica two years later, Liberia marks that day each year with an expo, folk dances, parades, cattle shows and local food, and children in masks and costumes parade through the centre. The Museo de Guanacaste, in the old barracks, displays local and national artists, and volunteers help preserve the building.

Football is the main sport. Municipal Liberia, the city's club, spent almost ten years in the top division after promotion in 2001, and plays at the Estadio Edgardo Baltodano Briceño, a stadium built in 1970 and remodelled to host matches of the 2014 FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup.

Liberia district had about 53,000 people at the 2011 census, and a 2022 estimate put it at about 66,000; the whole canton, which reaches to the Papagayo coast and the volcanoes, had an estimated 80,000. It is the largest city in Guanacaste and the regional hub of the north-west, where people from the surrounding farms and beach towns come to shop, see a doctor, study or catch a bus.

The economy has moved from cattle and farming towards services and tourism. The airport, hotels, car-hire companies and tour operators employ many people, and the city has two large shopping centres. The canton also produces electricity from the Las Pailas and Borinquen geothermal plants on the slopes of Rincón de la Vieja and from wind farms.

Life follows the heat. People start early, the streets slow in the middle of the day and fill again in the evening around the central park, where families gather and the shops and sodas stay busy. In the dry season the plains turn brown and dusty; in the wet season the landscape around the city goes green.

Liberia eats in the Guanacaste way, with maize at the base of the cooking. Tortillas are patted out by hand, tamales are wrapped in banana leaf, and pozol, a broth of maize kernels and meat, belongs to the same tradition. Rosquillas, crunchy rings of corn dough and cheese, and tanelas, sweeter corn pastries, are eaten with coffee in the afternoon, and chorreadas are sweet corn pancakes served with sour cream.

Cattle country means beef: grilled meat at every fiesta, and beef in the casado, the everyday lunch of rice, beans, salad and fried plantain with a piece of meat or fish, served at the sodas around the centre. Gallo pinto, rice and black beans fried together, starts the day.

Corn also fills the glass. Chicheme is a purple maize drink, and horchata in Guanacaste is made from ground corn and spices rather than rice. Local cheeses such as queso bagaceño, from nearby Bagaces, go into snacks and pastries sold by the city's bakeries. Mangoes and marañón, the cashew apple, are among the local fruit, and frescos, fruit blended with water or milk, are drunk with every meal.