San José is the capital province, and the smallest of the seven. The city is compact. Escazú and Santa Ana sit on the hills to the west, which is where many people look for a house. A ticket can say San José when the plane lands in Alajuela.
The province is the capital and the hills west of it. On this site that is San José, Escazú, and Santa Ana. It is not the whole Central Valley. Alajuela, Heredia, and Cartago share the same bowl of mountains and are the other three.
The line and the city people mean are almost the same thing here. Pérez Zeledón, well to the south, is also San José province, with a different drive and a wetter climate. San Gerardo de Dota is the cloud-forest night on that road. A capital stay is the city and the west side, not that southern canton.
