León, Nicaragua

Leon is Nicaragua's second-largest city, about 90 kilometers northwest of the capital Managua and 18 kilometers from the Pacific coast, with a population of about 213,718 as of 2022. Founded in 1524 by the conquistador Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, the original city was abandoned in 1610 after volcanic eruptions and earthquakes; its ruins, Leon Viejo, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. Leon served as Nicaragua's capital in colonial times and after independence in 1839, until the capital moved to Managua in 1852 as a political compromise, and it remains the country's political and intellectual center, home to the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, founded in 1812 and Central America's second-oldest university, and the burial place of the poet Ruben Dario.