City history
Founded in the Aserrí Valley as La Boca del Monte, San José evolved into Costa Rica's capital and maintains year-round UTC-6 time after concluding early daylight saving experiments.
Chapter one
Earliest documented name
"Mouth of the mountain"
Before Spanish colonization, the region was inhabited by the Huetar people, but no indigenous settlement name for San José was recorded. In 1736, colonial authorities ordered scattered valley residents to gather, naming the site La Boca del Monte after its geographical position at the valley mountain pass.
Mouth of the mountain
Earliest documented name for the colonial rural settlement, reflecting its position at the mountain opening of the Aserrí Valley.
New town at the mouth of the mountain
Expanded settlement name following the construction of a parish chapel dedicated to Saint Joseph to serve the surrounding valley population.
Saint Joseph
Formally designated a city in 1813 and chosen as Costa Rica's capital in 1823, named in honor of Saint Joseph.
Chapter two
Costa Rica standardized its national timekeeping relative to Greenwich Mean Time, setting legal time across San José and the republic to UTC-6 (Central Standard Time).
Costa Rica enacted its first seasonal daylight saving experiment, shifting clocks forward one hour to UTC-5 to evaluate energy conservation benefits.
In response to global oil market disruptions, Costa Rica temporarily introduced daylight saving time (UTC-5) to reduce evening electricity consumption across the capital.
Costa Rica instituted a seasonal clock change to UTC-5 to better synchronize commercial activities and lower peak evening energy usage.
Costa Rica ended daylight saving adjustments on March 15, 1992, establishing permanent UTC-6 standard time due to minimal equatorial daylight variation throughout the year.
Chapter three
Spanish colonial authorities instructed scattered settlers in the Aserrí Valley to establish a central village, founding the site that would become San José.
Following victory in the Battle of Ochomogo, San José replaced Cartago as the official capital of independent Costa Rica, accelerating urban development.
San José installed public electric street lights, becoming one of the first cities in Latin America to power municipal illumination and urban public clocks electrically.
Financed by coffee export revenues, San José opened the landmark National Theatre, featuring neoclassical architecture and precise timekeeping systems for public performances.
San José inaugurated an electric streetcar network, establishing precise transit timetables and modernizing daily travel across the expanding central capital.