San Vito (Costa Rica)

Contrary to popular belief, the name San Vito does not refer to Vito Sansonetti, one of the first landowners in the area, but honors the Italian saint Vitus, founder of villages, who coincidentally had the same name.

The name “Jaba”, according to the legend, is due to the fact that at one point the migrants met a Panamanian Indian by the stream as he was passing through San Vito with a “jaba” (a package consisting of a wooden box) on his back. The river is said to have taken the name that it bears to this day.

San Vito was founded in 1952, since when it has become an important center in Costa Rica’s Brunca region.

San Vito district was created on 10 December 1965 by Ley 3598.[2]

San Vito de Java was the result of a process of foreign agricultural colonization organized by the state of Costa Rica. Its two goals were to populate the country with foreign settlers, and to establish settlements in outlying areas. San Vito was founded by settlers from Europe, in particular Italy.

In 1952, in the midst of the post-war socioeconomic crisis in Europe, the two brothers Vito Giulio Cesar and Ugo Sansonetti organized a group of Italian pioneers from forty different places, from Trieste to Taranto, and including a handful from Istria and Dalmatia.

This Italian immigration is a typical example of directed agricultural colonization, similar in many ways to the process in other places in Latin America. The European immigrants were helped by the Comité Intergubernamental para las Migraciones Europeas (CIME), (Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration).

Vito Sansonetti (1916-1999), a seaman by profession, was the founder of the colonizing company which he named Sociedad Italiana de Colonización Agrícola (SICA), (Italian Agricultural Colonisation Society), and was in charge of negotiations with the Costa Rican authorities represented by the Instituto de Tierras y Colonización (ITCO) (Institute of Land and Colonization). His brother, lawyer Ugo Sansonetti, lived in San Vito and acted as the leader and agent of the company in the region.

Previously, the area had been known simply as Coto Brus, a place name of indigenous origin. At the time, the country was very interested in expanding new agricultural frontiers in order to develop and diversify the economy, as well as to attract foreign investment by means of easy bank loans and land grants.

San Vito has an area of 74.88 km²[3] and an elevation of 1,009 metres.[1]

The city is located on a high plateau with very irregular topography, at an altitude of 996 metres (3,268 ft) above sea level in the foothills of the Talamanca Mountain Range. The narrow and fast-flowing Java River traverses the outskirts of San Vito from northeast to southeast.

In terms of geomorphology, San Vito is situated in the Valle de Coto Brus (Coto Brus Valley), a depression caused by tectonic activity, and which extends from San Isidro to Panama. The valley is convergent, that is to say the Coto Brus Valley and the Coto Brus River that runs through it meet the Valle del General (Valley of the General), forming the Térraba River plain.

The district is characterized by mountain foothills and irregular high plateaus, and consequently its rivers are straight and fast-flowing.

Climatologically, it is under the influence of the south Pacific climate, meaning that it is characterized by an annual precipitation of 3050 mm, with rain falling on 175 days a year on average. The average temperature is 23 °C, and there is a three-month dry season from December to March. San Vito is affected by moisture coming from the Pacific and entering the area through the Térraba and Coto River valleys.

Vegetation is predominantly low-altitude evergreen wet forest, which is found in wet areas with temperatures between 23 and 38 °C at altitudes from sea level to 1000 metres. Tree species include almond, cedro amargo, gavilán, espavel and kativo, among others.

For the 2011 census, San Vito had a population of 14,834 inhabitants. [6]

There is emigration to more developed areas of Costa Rica or abroad, and a reduced birth rate. On the other hand, many of the inhabitants are temporary, living in the area according to the need to harvest certain crops, coffee in particular.

51% of the population of San Vito are men, and 49% are women. 56% are under fifteen years old and only 5% are over 65 years old, making it a very young city. People of working age make up 39% of the total.

The population of San Vito represents 49% of the total population of the Coto Brus canton.

No other place in Costa Rica has been so strongly influenced by Italian culture, even though with the passing years it has been greatly modified by contributions from other ethnic groups: Creole, Guaymi native americans, Asian, and so on.

7% of the population of San Vito have not completed any type of education. 24.8% have completed only primary, while 9% have satisfactorily completed secondary. 6.6% of the population have completed a university education. San Vito is the only place in Costa Rica (other than some small communities) in which the teaching of the Italian language is compulsory in the educational system, and promoted by the Ministerio de Educación Pública (Ministry of Public Education) in order to save Italian customs and traditions.

Coto Brus overall is one of the zones that rank lowest in Costa Rica on the Human Development Index. The economy is primarily based on agriculture and cattle farming. The principal crops are coffee, sugarcane, maize/corn, plantains, and beans. Cattle farming has also developed, although on a smaller scale.

Manufacturing is small, linked to farming and to the production of handicrafts for local consumption.

The town is served by San Vito de Java Airport.