San José Metropolitan Area

'''San Jose Metropolitan Area''' (Spanish: Area Metropolitana de San José) is the largest [[Urban area|urban agglomeration]] in [[Costa Rica]], comprising areas of high population density surrounding the capital, [[San José, Costa Rica|San José]]. The most proper definition corresponds to [[National Institute of Statistics and Census of Costa Rica|INEC]]'s urban districts of San José's Great Metropolitan Area (commonly referred as GAM). ==General definition== Since colonial times, Costa Rica's [[Costa Rican Central Valley|Central Valley]] houses a major share of the population in less than a tenth of the country's total area. On this [[plateau]] lies four of the seven [[Provinces of Costa Rica|provincial seats]], including the capital, San José. Throughout the years a strong immigration stream spurred by the uneven economic opportunities and a growing job demand helped to expand this urban cores and to develop new residential areas in former agricultural lands. San Jose Metropolitan Area matches more to a [[Political division|political]] definition than to an [[Urban planning|urban]] one. Also, this metro area is more compatible with the [[urban area]] concept, because a proper [[Metropolitan Area|metropolitan area definition]] applied in this case should include some cities englobed in the [[Conurbation|conurbation of San Jose]] nowadays should include the cities of [[Alajuela]], [[Heredia, Costa Rica|Heredia]] and [[Cartago, Costa Rica|Cartago]], but this is not currently accepted by the authorities, given the status of this cities as [[Provinces of Costa Rica|provincial capitals]] too. {{coord missing|Costa Rica}}