Santa Fe

The capital of New Mexico, founded in 1610 as the capital of Nuevo Mexico, a province of New Spain – which makes it the oldest state capital in the United States and the earliest European settlement west of the Mississippi River. The name is Spanish for Holy Faith, a shortened form of a longer original. It sits at the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at 6,998 feet, the highest altitude of any state capital in the country, and is the fourth-most populous city in the state with 87,505 residents as of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Santa Fe County.