Santa Tecla is a municipality in the La Libertad department of El Salvador. It is the capital of the department of La Libertad.The city was named after Saint Thecla who was a saint of the early Christian Church, and a reported follower of Paul of Tarsus in the 1st century AD. She is not mentioned in the New Testament, but the earliest record of her comes from the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, probably composed in the early 2nd century.
Santa Tecla is situated at the southern foot of the San Salvador Volcano, and very close to San Salvador (14.5 km, the capital city. The municipality of Antiguo Cuscatlán sits on its eastern border.