Santa Fe (Navajo: Yootó) is the capital of the state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 62,203 at the April 1, 2000 census; the estimate for July 1, 2006, is 72,056.^[1] It is the principal city of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Santa Fe County and is part of the larger Santa Fe-Española Combined Statistical Area.

History

Santa Fe under Spain and Mexico

The City of Santa Fe was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates between 1050 to 1150. The Santa Fe River provided water to people living there.

Santa Fe was the capital of Nuevo México, a province of New Spain explored by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and established in 1515. The "Kingdom of New Mexico" was first claimed for the Spanish Crown in 1540, almost 70 years before the founding of Santa Fe. Coronado and his men also traveled to the Grand Canyon and through the Great Plains on their New Mexico expedition.

Spanish colonists first settled in northern New Mexico in 1598. Don Juan de Oñate became the first Governor and Captain-General of New Mexico and established his capital in 1598 at San Juan Pueblo, north of Santa Fe. The city of Santa Fe was founded by Don Pedro de Peralta, New Mexico's third governor. Peralta gave the city its full name, "La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís", or "The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi."

The town was formally founded and made a capital in 1608, making it the oldest capital city in what is today the United States. Jamestown, Virginia (1607) is of similar vintage but not as a capital. It is at least the third oldest surviving American city founded by European colonists, behind St. Augustine, Florida (1565) and Pensacola, Florida (1559).

Except for the years 1680-1692, when, as a result of the Pueblo Revolt, the native Pueblo people drove the Spaniards out of the area known as New Mexico, later to be reconquered by Don Diego de Vargas, Santa Fe remained Spain's provincial seat until the outbreak of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810. In 1824 the city's status as the capital of the Mexican territory of Santa Fé de Nuevo México was formalized in the 1824 Constitution.

Don Pedro de Peralta in a statue depicting events of 1610

San Miguel Chapel in Santa Fe is said to be the oldest standing church structure in the US. The adobe walls were constructed around A.D. 1610