Heredia

Heredia is the smallest of Costa Rica's seven provinces. It runs from the northern edge of the Central Valley, just north of San Jose, over the volcanic mountains to the lowlands of Sarapiqui and the border with Nicaragua.

Its capital, the city of Heredia, is known as the City of Flowers. The first stone of its church of the Inmaculada Concepcion was laid in 1797, and El Fortin, a tower built in 1876, has been protected as architectural heritage since 1974.

Coffee is part of its identity: the city's coat of arms, adopted in 1929, carries a coffee branch as the symbol of the province's main product. The Universidad Nacional, one of the country's public universities, was founded in Heredia in 1973.

Braulio Carrillo National Park stretches from the edge of the Central Valley toward the Caribbean plains, across parts of Heredia, San Jose, Cartago and Limon. Within it, Barva Volcano, in Heredia, rises to 2,906 metres.

In the north lies the lowland canton of Sarapiqui. Near its town of Puerto Viejo, beside Braulio Carrillo National Park, the Organization for Tropical Studies established La Selva Research Station in 1968.