San Juan de los Caballeros, north of…

San Juan de los Caballeros, north of Santa Fe near modern Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, had been the capital of the province of Santa Fé de Nuevo México under Juan de Oñate and his son.

New Mexico's third Spanish governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, in 1608 founds a new city at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which he calls La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi.

He makes it in 1610 the capital of the province, which it has almost constantly remained, making it the oldest capital city in what is the modern United States. (Jamestown, Virginia, is of similar vintage (1607) but is no longer a capital.)

Santa Fe is at least the third oldest surviving American city founded by European colonists, behind the oldest St. Augustine, Florida (1565). (Although Santa Fe is not one of the oldest continuously occupied cities, as from 1680 to 1692 it will be abandoned due to raids by natives.)

A few settlements had been founded prior to St. Augustine but all failed, including the original Pensacola colony in West Florida, founded by Tristán de Luna y Arellano in 1559, with the area abandoned in 1561 due to hurricanes, famine and warring tribes. (Fort Caroline, founded by the French in 1564 in what is today Jacksonville, Florida only lasted a year before being obliterated by the Spanish in 1565.)

The city is today the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico.

It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of Santa Fe County.