San Juan del Sur is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

and coastal town on the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, in the Rivas department in southwest

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...

. It is located south of

Managua ) , settlement_type = Capital city , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Nicar ...

. San Juan del Sur is popular among surfers and is a vacation spot for many Nicaraguan families and foreign tourists. Its population is approximately 15,553, consisting largely of families engaged in fishing, tourism or food and beverage industry and foreigners from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and

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. While the local economy was, for many years, based on fishing and shipping, it has shifted towards tourism in the last 20 years. In October 2002, to mark the city's 150th anniversary, it was formally designated the "Port of San Juan del Sur" and a "Tourism City of Nicaragua." San Juan del Sur, set beside a crescent-shaped bay, was a popular resting place for gold prospectors headed to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

in the 1850s. Correspondingly, San Juan del Sur served as a hub for Cornelius Vanderbilt Lines. A statue of the

Christ of the Mercy The ''Christ of the Mercy'' is a colossal statue of Jesus Christ in the city of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, to a height of 134m above sea level . The statue is located high above the northernmost seawall in the bay of San Juan. At the fo ...

sits above town on the northern end of the bay. The Mirador del Cristo de la Misericordia sits on one of the highest points on the bay and is one of the tallest Jesus statues in the world. The town is near the site where '' Survivor: Nicaragua'' and '' Survivor: Redemption Island'' were filmed. Those seasons aired in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The 29th U.S. Survivor season, '' Survivor: San Juan del Sur'' (2014), was also filmed there, as was Season 30, '' Survivor: Worlds Apart'', which aired in 2015. San Juan del Sur has become a hot spot for international surfing competition.

Nicaragua Canal

San Juan del Sur is the port on the Pacific that has been focus of many historic and modern day

Nicaragua Canal The Nicaraguan Canal ( es, Canal de Nicaragua), formally the Nicaraguan Canal and Development Project (also referred to as the Nicaragua Grand Canal, or the Grand Interoceanic Canal) was a proposed shipping route through Nicaragua to connect th ...

proposals because of its location on the narrow isthmus of Rivas between the

and

Lake Nicaragua Lake Nicaragua or Cocibolca or Granada ( es, Lago de Nicaragua, , or ) is a freshwater lake in Nicaragua. Of tectonic origin and with an area of , it is the largest lake in Central America, the 19th largest lake in the world (by area) and the t ...

U.S. Intervention in San Juan del Sur

U.S. backed forces engaged in armed conflict in San Juan del Sur on March 7, 1984.

The 1992 Nicaraguan tsunami

On September 2, 1992, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake off the central coast of Nicaragua generated a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

that devastated many communities along the Pacific Coast. Run-up values along the coast ranged from 2m in the north and south to up to 10m in some central locations. Run-up values in San Juan del Sur were approximately 5m. As a result of the tsunami an estimated 60% of homes in the community were destroyed, approximately 800 residents were displaced, and businesses and homes along the Malecón suffered severe damage.

Geography

Climate

The climate for San Juan del Sur is a

tropical savanna climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry winter) and ''As'' (for a dry summer). The driest month has less than of p ...

(''Aw'' according to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

), with constant and very warm temperatures throughout the year. The dry season lasts from December to May, with a substantial and heavy rainy season throughout the remainder of the year, with an average yearly rainfall of .

International relations

The Barrio Planta Project school is supported by a US-based 501(c)(3) organization.

Twin towns – Sister cities

San Juan del Sur is twinned with: *

Gießen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...

, USANewton-San Juan del Sur Sister City Project
Retrieved 2008-06-07. *

Sauda Sauda ''()'' is a municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Sauda, where most of the population lives. Other villages in the municipality include Saudasjøen and Amdal. Despite being i ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

* Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA

Gallery

File:SJDS (Acunapic).jpg, Image taken from the Christ of Mercy hill File:San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. View from SANSA Flight (Liberia-Costa Esmeralda).jpg, San Juan del Sur Bay, aerial view File:Bahia de San Juan.jpg, San Juan del Sur beach, and the hill with the Christ of Mercy atop File:SanjuandelsurIV.JPG, Sunset at San Juan del Sur bay.

References

External links

Points of interest on the map for San Juan del Sur
- Interactive online map of San Juan del Sur
San Juan Live
- Practical Lifestyle Information on San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua
Nicaragua Earthquake/Tsunami Sep 1992 UNDHA Situation Reports 1 – 7
* Satake, K., J. Bourgeois, K. Abe, K. Abe, Y. Tsuji, F. Imamura, Y. Iio, H. Katao, E. Noguera, and F. Estrada. 1993. Tsunami Field Survey of the 1992 Nicaragua Earthquake. Eos, 74:145-160. {{Lighthouse identifiers , qid2=Q33411587 Municipalities of the Rivas Department Populated coastal places in Nicaragua Lighthouses in Nicaragua