Sarchí Norte

History

Sarchí is Costa Rica's most famous crafts center. The town offers more than 200 stores and small family-operated woodworking factories producing wooden bowls and other tableware, fold-up rocking chairs of wood and leather, and a wide variety of kitschy items. The most popular items on sale are "carretas", elaborately painted oxcarts that traditionally carried coffee from the highlands down to the port on the Pacific coast. It was also the place where serial furniture manufacture started in Costa Rica, around 1890 decade with a design of Daniel Alfaro Corrales, and later mass-produced by his brother Pedro Juvenal Alfaro Corrales, those furnitures, in special the chairs are known as "sillas sarchí" and are easily recognized because most of the parts were turned. Eloy Alfaro Corrales, the youngest brother was partner with Pedro Juvenal, but later started his own business of Oxcart making when he bought the workshop of Sem Perez who in turn bought it from Hacienda La Eva Around 1900-03 Daniel Alfaro Corrales also designed the modern and improved oxcart including the segmented wooden wheel in use today from the previous very crude and primitive platform known as "Cureña", in the particular case of the wheel is stronger than the original one piece, or the lightly improved three pieces design. The canton was established by a decree Number 766 on October 26, 1949. It is named in honor of Dr. Carlos Luis Valverde Vega, a medic and founder of the Unión Médica Nacional (National Medical Union) who was the first death of the 1948 revolution. The members of the board that struggle to accomplish it are: Samuel Alfaro Alpízar, Efraím Zamora Castro, Dauve Alfaro Castro, Pedro Alfaro Zamora, Hebly Inkseter Soto, Otoniel Alfaro Alfaro and Eliécer Pérez Conejo and they are known today…

Geography

Sarchí Norte has an area of km2 and an elevation of metres. It is located on the slopes of the Cordillera Central (Central Mountain Range) at the eastern edge of the Central Valley. It is 27 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital city of Alajuela, and 46 kilometers from the national capital city of San Jose.

Most-observed species

• Clay-colored Thrush

  Turdus grayi Bonaparte, 1838 · Aves
  24,596
• Blue-gray Tanager

  Thraupis episcopus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  21,745
• Great Kiskadee

  Pitangus sulphuratus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  17,610
• Tropical Kingbird

  Tyrannus melancholicus Vieillot, 1819 · Aves
  17,470
• Black Vulture

  Coragyps atratus (Bechstein, 1793) · Aves
  17,419
• Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

  Amazilia tzacatl (de la Llave, 1833) · Aves
  17,389
• Great-tailed Grackle

  Quiscalus mexicanus (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  16,652
• White-winged Dove

  Zenaida asiatica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  16,262

Most recent

• M 4.3 — 2026-08-01
  7 km SE of Orosi, Costa Rica
• M 5.2 — 2026-07-07
  18 km NW of Jacó, Costa Rica
• M 4.1 — 2026-07-03
  4 km SSE of San Rafael Abajo, Costa Rica
• M 3.2 — 2026-05-16
  4 km SE of Jacó, Costa Rica
• M 3.2 — 2026-05-14
  10 km SSW of Jacó, Costa Rica
• M 4.4 — 2026-05-14
  4 km SE of Jacó, Costa Rica