this area was occupied for at least several hundred years by indigenous peoples who built villages. The city of Santa Fe, founded by Spanish colonists in 1610, is known as the oldest state capital city in the United States and the oldest city in New Mexico. Santa Fe (meaning "holy faith" in Spanish) had a population of 69,204 in 2012. It is the principal city of a Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Santa Fe County and is part of the larger Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Las Vegas Combined Statistical Area. The city's full name when founded was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís ("The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi").[4]