heredia costa rica

heredia costa rica General Information:

Climate: Like the province of Alajuela, Heredia includes a portion of the Central Valley and the Central Volcanic Cordillera, but the majority of its territory lies in the northern lowlands, south of Nicaragua. The geographical variation contained within this province (the smallest of Costa Rica's seven) gives it as wide a range of climatic conditions as any of the provinces, from warm and humid lowlands, to cool and damp highlands, to the mild but seasonally wet and dry Central Valley.

History: Within less than a decade after the founding of the Spanish settlement in the Valley of Cartago, other areas in the Central Valley also began to be colonized. Among the first of these areas was the village of Barva -- less than three kilometers north of what is now the city of Heredia.

The construction of churches so that the populace could comply with its religious obligations and ceremonies including weddings, baptisms, and funerals was an important criteria in the development of communities during colonial times (in modern times, soccer fields seem to have replaced this function). In 1706, the first parish church in this region was erected in Lagunilla, near the village of El Barreal, but in 1717 was moved several kilometers to the north to the site that would become the city of Heredia. It is reported that houses in outlying areas were even burned so that their occupants would move closer to the center of the developing town. Variously known throughout the colonial period as Villa Vieja or Cubujuquí, the name Heredia comes from the man who managed to obtain the title of "villa" for the newly formed settlement, don Gonzalo Fernández de Heredia. The present day church in the center of Heredia is one of the oldest in Costa Rica, dating back to 1797.

With the introduction of coffee to Costa Rica, the fertile southern slopes of Barva Volcano became populated with plantations of this crop. The steep and very rainy northern slope did not become populated until much more recently. The Sarapiquí River, which is navigable upstream from the San Juan River (which flows into the Caribbean) as far inland as Puerto Viejo (Old Port) de Sarapiquí at the volcano's base on the northern side, was an important transportation route for those few hardy settlers who first moved into this region. Although as recently as 1953, a mere three thatched-roof houses were all that comprised the village of Puerto Viejo.