San José is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica. It is also the capital of the San José Province, generally related with the dimensions of San José Canton, the administrative unit that encompasses the city downtown, although Metropolitan San José (a concept fuzzily set by planning authorities) already surpasses these limits, even taking into account area and population from other provinces.

San José is located in the mountainous center of the country, specifically on a plateau called Central Valley, at 9°56′N, 84°5′W and at an elevation of about 1,170 meters (3,839 feet) above sea level. According to the 2000 census, the city had a population of 309,672 people in the canton: the latter half of the 20th century was a period of rapid growth for the city, considering that in 1950 its population was a mere 86,900. The metropolitan area of San José exceeds the canton limits and surpasses 2.5 million inhabitants.
(Text from www.Wikipedia.org)