San Juan del Sur is a municipality and coastal town on the Pacific Ocean, in the Rivas department in south-west Nicaragua. San Juan del Sur is popular among surfers and is a vacation spot for many Nicaraguan families and foreign tourists.
Its population is approximately 18,500, consisting largely of families engaged in fishing and foreigners from the United States, Canada and Europe. While the local economy was, for many years, based on fishing and shipping,it has shifted towards tourism in the last 20 years.
San Juan del Sur, set aside a crescent-shaped bay, was a popular resting place for gold prospectors headed to California in the 1850s. Correspondingly, San Juan del Sur served as a hub for Cornelius Vanderbilt Lines.
The town is near the site of the filming of Survivor: Nicaragua and Survivor: Redemption Island.[1] The seasons aired in 2010 and 2011 respectively.
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San Juan del Sur is the port on the Pacific that has been focus of many historic and modern day Nicaragua Canal proposals because of its proximity to the narrow isthmus of Rivas between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Nicaragua.
U.S. backed forces engaged in armed conflict in San Juan del Sur on March 7, 1984.[2][3]
On September 2, 1992 a magnitude 7.0 earthquake off the central coast of Nicaragua generated a tsunami 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.
A local judicial court in nearby Rivas has received international media attention for the conviction, overturned on appeal, of American magazine publisher Eric Volz, accused of raping and murdering his Nicaraguan ex-girlfriend in her dress shop in San Juan del Sur on November 21, 2006. After 11 months in prison, Voltz was released and left the country
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.
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