One thing that most major cities throughout the world have in common is the cultural enclave known as Chinatown. Areas known as Chinatown normally offer many restaurants, hotels, services, Chinese food and supply markets and products. Not only is it an ethnic comfort area for Chinese people to run or start their businesses, but Chinatowns are commonly sought out by tourists for their goods and cultural learning experience.

In 2009, as part of a an agreement between China and Costa Rica, China put forth $1 million US dollars, coupled with $300,000 from the municipality of San José to start planning for a Chinatown project in San José, Costa Rica.

San José is about to join the international rank of cities with a Chinese epicenter. Those of you who have spent time around the east side of downtown Chepé might be familiar with the difficulty of traversing the neighborhood of Paseo de los Estudiantes. The difficulties of traveling the area stems from closed one and two-way streets due to construction and heavy equipment taking up extra space on other roads. According to the Municipality of San José, it is almost over. The Projected completion of Chinatown in Costa Rica is this October.

Costa Rica hosts some 45,000 people of direct Chinese heritage. And a heavy concentration of San José’s Chinese population lives in and around the area of construction. The strip has been modified as pedestrian only and has undergone a total overhaul. The Entrance to the new China town will be marked by a large Chinese arc (pictured above) and pass some six blocks through the neighborhood through the area between avenida 2 through 14. The completion of the project should draw many new small business investors into the area as well as create a renewed tourism push to East Downtown.