San José del Cabo (, ''

Saint Joseph According to the canonical Gospels, Joseph (; ) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. Joseph is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Eastern O ...

of the Cape'') is a coastal city located on the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California (), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Vermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja California peninsula from ...

coast, near the southern tip of

Baja California Sur Baja California Sur, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California Sur, is a state in Mexico. It is the 31st and last state to be admitted, in 1974. It is also the second least populated Mexican state and the ninth-largest state by ...

(state),

México Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. San José del Cabo is situated on the edge of a shallow bay, some northeast of Cabo San Lucas, a city with which it shares the title of ''Los Cabos''. San José del Cabo is the seat of the Los Cabos Municipality. The city had a population of 136,285 at the 2020 census. The two cities are served by Los Cabos International Airport.

People and history

The 2020 census found that, at the time, 136,285 people lived in the city. Together with neighboring Cabo San Lucas, it forms a major tourist hub, with over 900,000 hotel guests in 2011. The indigenous Pericu name for San Jose del Cabo was Añiñi. The '' Misión Estero de las Palmas de San José del Cabo Añuití'' was founded in 1730 on the west bank of the nearby Río San José, which flows into the largest body of freshwater in Baja California Sur, an estuary, after flowing largely subterraneanly for from its origin in the ''

Sierra de la Laguna The Sierra de la Laguna is a mountain range at the southern end of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico, and is the southernmost range of the Peninsular Ranges System. It is located in La Paz Municipality, Baja California Sur, La Paz Municipa ...

'' (Laguna Mountains). For centuries, the river has provided a source of freshwater for the locals and animals of this coastal desert we know today as San José del Cabo; it was once used as a source of freshwater for Spanish

galleon Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Spain and Portugal. They were first used as armed cargo carriers by Europe, Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the Age of Sail, and they were the principal vessels dr ...

s traveling back from the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. The river once flowed above-ground until the beginning of the 20th century, due to anthropogenic causes. A one-kilometer long

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material, and rises from the bed of a body of water close to the surface or ...

separates the estuary from what early Spanish explorers, including Sebastián Vizcaíno, called the ''Bahía de San Bernabé'' (Bay of Saint Burnaby), now known as Bahía de San José del Cabo. San José del Cabo is one of two places where the critically endangered rice rat '' Oryzomys peninsulae'' has survived.

Geography

Climate

San José del Cabo, like almost all of the Baja California peninsula, has a tropical desert climate (

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''BWh''). The area, however, does receive slightly more rainfall than most areas further north, mainly due to

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

s occasionally approaching from the south. These storms can bring very heavy precipitation events, such as the roughly on 1 September 1998, or the on 3 November 1993. Overall, rainfall events here are some of the most spontaneous anywhere in the world due to the cyclone influence, and many years can pass without significant rain, at all. The sea experiences lows of in winter, and highs of during the summer months.

Demographics

Many people from around the world live here, mostly from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, China, Korea, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and other Latin American countries, among others. Some 80% of the population, however, are originally from other parts of Latin America (Mexico, Central and

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) thus enabling one to hear and experience several dialects of Spanish being spoken.

References

External links