Costa Rica

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Costa Rica

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( or República de Costa Rica, ) is a country

Country

Country may refer to the territory of a state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region. In another meaning of the word, the country is also a term used to refer to rural areas....
in Central America

Central America

Central America is a central geography region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmus portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast....
, bordered by Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua , is a representative democracy republic. It is the largest state in Central America with an area of 130,000 km2, about the size of the state of New York....
to the north, Panama

Panama

Panama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on an isthmus connecting North and South America, some categorize it as a transcontinental nation....
to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Caribbean Sea

The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean situated in the mid-latitudes of the Western Hemisphere, bounded to the south and west by the Americas, with the North Atlantic Ocean proper to the northeast and the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest....
to the east. Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", was the first country in the world to constitutionally abolish its army

Military of Costa Rica

On December 1, 1948, List of Presidents of Costa Rica Jos? Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica abolished the country's army after victory in Costa Rican Civil War in that year....
. Among Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages ? particularly Spanish language and Portuguese language, and variably French language ? are primarily spoken....
n countries, Costa Rica ranks 4th in terms of the 2007 Human Development Index

Human Development Index

The Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies to determine whether a country is a developed country, developing country....
.

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Encyclopedia

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( or República de Costa Rica, ) is a country

Country

Central America

Nicaragua

Panama

Pacific Ocean

Caribbean Sea

Military of Costa Rica

On December 1, 1948, List of Presidents of Costa Rica Jos? Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica abolished the country's army after victory in Costa Rican Civil War in that year....
. Among Latin America

Latin America

Human Development Index

Americas

The Americas are the region of the Western hemisphere that consists of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions....
, in terms of the 2008 Environmental Performance Index

Environmental Performance Index

The Environmental Performance Index is a method of quantifying and numerically benchmarking the environmentalism performance of a country's policies....
. In 2007 the government of Costa Rica stated that they want Costa Rica to be the first country to become carbon neutral

Carbon neutral

Being carbon neutral, or having a net zero carbon footprint, refers to achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing a measured amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset.The carbon neutral concept may be extended to include other greenhouse gases measured in terms of their carbon dioxide equival...
by 2021.

History

In Pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all archaeology of the Americas in the history of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the Americas continents....
times the indigenous people

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples....
, in what is now known as Costa Rica, were part of the international Intermediate Area

Intermediate Area

The 'Intermediate Area' is an Archeology geographical area of the Americas that was defined in its clearest form by Gordon R. Willey in his 1971 book An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol....
located between the Mesoamerican and Andean cultural regions. This has recently been updated to include the influence of the Isthmo-Colombian

Isthmo-Colombian

The Isthmo-Colombian area was defined in a chapter by John W. Hoopes and Oscar Fonseca Z. in the 2003 book Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia....
area. It was the point where the Mesoamerican and South American native cultures met.

The northwest of the country, the Nicoya Peninsula

Nicoya Peninsula

The Nicoya Peninsula is a peninsula on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and lies in the Guanacaste Province in the north, and the Puntarenas Province in the south....
, was the southernmost point of Nahuatl (named after Nitin) cultural influence when the Spanish

Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
conquerors (conquistadores) came in the sixteenth century. The central and southern portions of the country had Chibcha influences. However, the indigenous people have influenced modern Costa Rican culture to a relatively small degree, as most of these died from diseases such as smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox is an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning spotted, or varus, meaning "pimple"....
and mistreatment by the Spaniards.

The first European to reach what is now Costa Rica was Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was a Republic of Genoa navigator, colonialist and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean?funded by Queen Isabella of Spain?led to general European awareness of the America in the Western Hemisphere....
in 1502. During Spanish Colonial

Spanish Empire

The Spanish Empire was one of the largest empires in world history, and one of the first global empires. It included territories and colonies ruled by Spain in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania between the 15th and late 19th centuries....
times, the largest city in Central America was Guatemala City

Guatemala City

Guatemala City is the Capital and largest city of the nation of Guatemala. It is also the capital city of the local Guatemala and the largest city in Central America....
. Costa Rica's distance from this hub led to difficulty in establishing trade routes and was one of the reasons that Costa Ricans developed in relative isolation and with little oversight from the Spanish Monarchy

List of Spanish monarchs

This is a list of Spanish monarchs?that is, rulers of the country of Spain in the modern sense of the word. The forerunners of the Spanish throne, as well as of the List of Portuguese monarchs, were the following:...
("The Crown

Spanish monarchy

is the Constitutional Monarchy of Spain. The King or Queen regent of Spain is the Head of State List of heads of state of Spain and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Armed Forces....
"). While this isolation allowed the colony

Colony

In politics and in history, a colony is a Territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies....
to develop free of intervention by The Crown, it also contributed to its failure to share in the prosperity of the Colonies, making Costa Rica the poorest Spanish Colony in Central America. Costa Rica was described as "the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all Americas" by a Spanish governor in 1719.

Another contributing factor to this poverty was the lack of indigenous people used as forced labor

Encomienda

The encomienda system is a trusteeship labor system that was employed by the Spanish crown during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The etymology of encomienda and encomendero lies in the Spanish verb encomendar, "to entrust"......
. While many Spaniards in the other colonies had tribal members working on their land, most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work on their own land themselves. For all these reasons Costa Rica was by and large unappreciated and overlooked by the Crown

Habsburg Spain

Habsburg Spain refers to the history of Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries , when Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty ....
and left to develop on its own. It is believed that the circumstances during this period led to the formation of many of the idiosyncrasies that Costa Rica has become known for, while at the same time setting the stage for Costa Rica's development as a more egalitarian society than the rest of its neighbors. Costa Rica became a "rural democracy" with no oppressed mestizo or indigenous class. It was not long before Spanish

Spanish people

Spanish people or Spaniards are a nation or ethnic group native to Spain, in the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe. They are often considered an amalgam of different ethnic groups, rather than an ethnic group by itself....
settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil and a climate

Climate

Climate encompasses the temperatures, humidity, atmospheric pressure, winds, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other Meteorology elements in a given region over long periods of time, as opposed to the term weather, which refers to current activity of these same elements....
that was milder than that of the lowlands.

Costa Rica joined other Central American provinces in 1821 in a joint declaration of independence from Spain. After a brief time in the Mexican Empire of Agustín de Iturbide

Agustín de Iturbide

Agust?n de Iturbide was born into a noble family in Valladolid, New Spain . He was commissioned into the colonial army when still in his teens....
Costa Rica became a state in the Federal Republic of Central America

Federal Republic of Central America

The Federal Republic of Central America, also known as the United Provinces of Central America, was a short-lived state in Central America, which consisted of the territories of the former Captaincy General of Guatemala....
from 1823 to 1839. In 1824 the capital was moved to San José

San José, Costa Rica

San Jos? is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica, and is at the heart of Gran Area Metropolitana or GAM, located in the Costa Rican Central Valley....
, but violence briefly ensued through an intense rivalry with Cartago

Cartago, Costa Rica

Cartago is a city in Costa Rica, about 25 km east of the capital, San Jos?, Costa Rica. It is at an elevation of about 1435 m above sea level, at the base of the Iraz? Volcano....
. Although the newly independent provinces formed a Federation, border disputes broke out among them, adding to the region's turbulent history and conditions. Costa Rica's membership in the newly formed Federal Republic of Central America, free of Spanish rule, was short lived; in 1838, long after the Central American Federation ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign. The distance from Guatemala City to the Central Valley of Costa Rica, where most of the population lived and still lives, was great. The local population had little allegiance to the government in Guatemala City, in part because of the history of isolation during Colonial times. Costa Rica's disinterest in participating as a province

Province

A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state....
in a greater Central American government was one of the deciding factors in the break-up of the fledgling federation into independent states, which still exist today. However, all of the Central American nations still celebrate September 15 as their independence day, which pertains to the independence of Central America from Spain].

Most Afro-Costa Ricans, who constitute about 3% of the country's population, descend from Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length and as much as in width situated in the Caribbean Sea. It is about south of Cuba, and west of the island of Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are situated....
n immigrants who arrived during the 1880s to work in the construction

Construction

In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of multitasking....
of railways connecting the urban populations of the Central Plateau to the port of Limón

Limon

Limon or Lim?n may refer to:Places:* Lim?n, a port city in Costa Rica* Lim?n province, one of the provinces of Costa Rica* Limon, Colorado, a town in the United States...
on the Caribbean coast. United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
convicts and Chinese

Chinese people

The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People who reside in and hold citizenship of the Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China ....
immigrants also participated in the construction project, conducted by U.S. businessman Minor C. Keith

Minor C. Keith

Minor Cooper Keith was a United States of America Rail transport, fruit, and shipping magnate whose business activities had a profound impact in Central America and in Colombia....
. In exchange for completing the railroad, the Costa Rican government granted Keith large tracts of land and a lease on the train route, which he used to produce banana

Banana

File:Banana and cross section.jpgBanana is the common name for a fruit and also the herbaceous plants of the genus Musa which produce this commonly eaten fruit....
s and export them to the United States. As a result, bananas came to rival coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed drink prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called coffee beans, of the Coffea. Caffeinated coffee has a stimulating effect in humans....
as the principal Costa Rican export

Export

Export goods or services are provided to foreign consumers by domestic Production theory basics. It is a good that is sent to another country for sale....
, while foreign-owned corporation

Corporation

A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that form it. It is a legal entity owned by individual stockholders. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate ....
s (including the United Fruit Company

United Fruit Company

The United Fruit Company was a major United States corporation that traded tropical fruit grown in Third World plantations and sold in the United States and Europe....
) began to hold a major role in the national economy.

Historically, Costa Rica has generally enjoyed greater peace and more consistent political stability compared with many of its fellow Latin American nations. Since the late nineteenth century, however, Costa Rica has experienced two significant periods of violence. In 1917-19, Federico Tinoco Granados

Federico Tinoco Granados

General Jos? Federico Alberto de Jes?s Tinoco Granados was a President of Costa Rica.After a career in the army, he was appointed Minister of War in the cabinet of President Alfredo Gonz?lez Flores....
ruled as a dictator until he was overthrown and forced into exile. Again in 1948, José Figueres Ferrer

José Figueres Ferrer

Jos? Mar?a Hip?lito Figueres Ferrer , served as President of Costa Rica of Costa Rica on three occasions:1948–1949, 1953–1958, and 1970–1974....
led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election. With more than 2,000 dead, the resulting 44-day Costa Rican Civil War

Costa Rican Civil War

The Costa Rican Civil War was the bloodiest event in 20th century Costa Rican history. It lasted for 44 days , during which approximately 2,000 people are believed to have died....
was the bloodiest event in Costa Rica during the twentieth-century. Afterwards, the new, victorious government junta

Committee

A committee is a type of small deliberative assembly that is usually intended to remain subordinate to another, larger deliberative assembly—which when organized so that action on committee requires a vote by all its entitled members, is called the "Committee of the Whole"....
, led by the opposition, abolished the military and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution by a democratically-elected assembly. Having enacted these reforms, the regime finally relinquished its power on November 8, 1949, to the new democratic government. After the coup d'etat

Coup d'état

A coup d??tat , often simply called a coup, is the sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government by a part of the state establishment – usually the military – to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government....
, Figueres became a national hero, winning the country's first democratic election under the new constitution in 1953. Since then, Costa Rica has held 12 presidential elections, the latest being in 2006. All of them have been widely regarded by the international community as peaceful, transparent, and relatively smooth transitions.

Geography

Costa Rica is located on the Central American isthmus

Isthmus

File:The Spit Bruny Island.jpg File:IsthmusOfPanama.pngAn isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas. Of note, the Isthmus of Panama connects the continents of North America and South America , and the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt connects Africa and Asia ....
, 10° North of the equator

Equator

The equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the Plane perpendicular to the Earth's rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass....
and 84° West of the Prime Meridian

Prime Meridian

The Prime Meridian is the meridian at which longitude is defined to be 0?.The Prime Meridian and the opposite 180th meridian , which the International Date Line generally follows, form a great circle that divides the Earth into the Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemispheres....
. It borders both the Caribbean Sea (to the east) and the North Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
(to the west), with a total of 1,290 kilometers (802 mi) of coastline (212 km / 132 mi on the Caribbean coast and 1,016 km / 631 mi on the Pacific

Costa Rica also borders Nicaragua to the north (309 km / 192 mi of border) and Panama to the south-southeast (639 km / 397 mi of border). In total, Costa Rica comprises 51,100 square kilometers (19,730 sq. mi

Square mile

The square mile is an Imperial system and US customary system of measure for an area equal to the area of a square of one mile. It should not be confused with miles square, which refers to the number of miles on each side squared....
) plus 589.000 square kilometers of territorial waters

Territorial waters

Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most twelve nautical miles from the baseline of a coastal state....
.

The highest point in the country is Cerro Chirripó

Cerro Chirripó

Cerro Chirrip? is the highest mountain in Costa Rica, with an altitude of 3,820 metres. It is located in the Chirrip? National Park and is noted for its ecological wealth....
, at 3,820 metres (12,532 ft), and is the fifth highest peak in Central America. The highest volcano in the country is the Irazú Volcano

Irazú Volcano

The Iraz? Volcano is an active volcano in Costa Rica, situated in the Cordillera Central, Costa Rica close to the city of Cartago, Costa Rica. Its name could come from either the combination of "ara" and "tzu" or a corruption of Iztar?, which was the name of an indigenous village on the flanks of the volcano....
(3,431 m / 11,257 ft). The largest lake in Costa Rica is Lake Arenal

Lake Arenal

Lake Arenal is a reservoir in Costa Rica, formed by enlarging an existing small lake of the same name by the completion of a dam in 1979. It is located near the Arenal Volcano and the Monteverde cloud forest, at ....
.

Costa Rica also comprises several islands. Cocos Island

Cocos Island

Cocos Island is an island located off the shore of Costa Rica. It constitutes the 11th district of Puntarenas Canton of the province of Puntarenas....
stands out because of its distance from continental landmass (24 km² / 9.25 sq mi, from Puntarenas

Puntarenas

Puntarenas, which means "Sandy Point" in Spanish, is the capital and largest city in the province Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica, at the Pacific coast....
coast), but Calero Island

Calero Island

Calero Island is an inland island located in the Province of Limon, in the Republic of Costa Rica. The island is located near the border with the Republic of Nicaragua....
is the largest island of the country (151.6 km² / 58.5 sq mi).

Costa Rica protects 23% of its national territory within the Protected Areas system

List of Conservation Areas of Costa Rica

List of SINAC Conservation Areas of Costa Rica:...
. It also possesses the greatest density of species in the world.

Government

Costa Rica is a democratic republic

Republic

A republic is a state or country that is not led by a hereditary monarch but in which the people have an impact on its government. The word originates from the Latin term res publica....
with a strong constitution

Constitution

A constitution is a system for government — often codified as a written document — that establishes the rules and principles of an autonomous political entity....
. Although there are claims that the country has had more than 115 years of uninterrupted democracy, their presidential election

Presidential election

A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is president....
history shows otherwise. Nonetheless, the country has had at least fifty-nine years of uninterrupted democracy, making it one of the most stable countries in the region. Costa Rica has been able to avoid the widespread violence that has plagued most of Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages ? particularly Spanish language and Portuguese language, and variably French language ? are primarily spoken....
.

Costa Rica is a republic with three powers: executive responsibilities are vested in a president

List of Presidents of Costa Rica

The following table contains a list of the presidents and heads of state of Costa Rica since Central American independence from Spain and Mexico....
, legislative power is vested on the Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica

The Legislative Assembly is the unicameralism legislature of the government of Costa Rica. The national congress building is located in the city capital, San Jos?, Costa Rica, specifically in El Carmen, San Jos?, Costa Rica in San Jos? Canton....
, and Judicial power is vested on the Supreme Court. There are two vice president

Vice president

A vice president is an Corporate officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin List of Latin phrases #vice meaning 'in place of'....
s as well as a cabinet designated by the president. The president, vice presidents, and fifty-seven Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica

Delegate

A delegate is a person representing an organization at a meeting or conference between organizations of the same level ....
s are elected for four-year terms. A constitutional amendment

Constitutional amendment

An amendment is a change to the Constitution of a nation or a state. In jurisdictions with "rigid" or "entrenched" constitutions, amendments require a special procedure different from that used for enacting ordinary laws....
approved in 1969 limited presidents and delegates to one term, although delegates were allowed to run again for an Assembly seat after sitting out a term.

The Supreme Electoral Body, the Office of the Comptroller General, the Office of the Procurator General of the Republic and the Office of the Ombudsman also enjoy a lot of independence.

The Supreme Court is divided into 4 chambers, one dealing with Constitutional Law, one dealing with Criminal Law and two dealing with Civil Law, Merchant Law and the like.

In April 2003, the constitutional amendment

Constitutional amendment

Óscar Arias

?scar Rafael de Jes?s Arias S?nchez is the current List of Presidents of Costa Rica of Costa Rica, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end civil wars then raging in several Central American countries....
(Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. According to Nobel's will , the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for :wikt:fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the h...
laureate, 1987) to run for president for a second term. In 2006, Óscar Arias

Óscar Arias

Free trade

Free trade is a type of trade policy that allows traders to act and transact without coercive interference from government. Thus, the policy permits trading partners mutual gains from trade, with goods and services produced according to the law of comparative advantage....
. He took office on May 8, 2006.

Certain autonomous state agencies enjoy considerable operational independence; they include the telecommunications and electrical power

Electric power

Electric power is defined as the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt .When electric current flows in a circuit, it can transfer energy to do mechanical work or work ....
monopoly

Monopoly

In economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it....
, the nationalized commercial bank

Commercial bank

A commercial bank is a type of financial intermediary and a type of bank. Commercial banking is also known as business banking. It is a bank that provides checking accounts, savings accounts, and money market accounts and that accepts time deposits....
s, the state insurance

Insurance

Insurance, in law and economics, is a form of risk management primarily used to Hedge against the risk of a contingent loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for a premium, and can be thought of as a guaranteed small loss to prevent a large, possibly devastating los...
monopoly, and the social security

Social security

Social security primarily refers to a social insurance program providing social protection, or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others....
agency. Costa Rica has no military by constitution.

Provinces, cantons, and districts

Costa Rica is composed of seven provinces, which in turn are divided into 81 cantons ("cantón" in Spanish, plural "cantones"), each of which is directed by a mayor. Mayors are chosen democratically every four years by each canton's people. There are no provincial legislature

Legislature

Legislature is a type of representative deliberative assembly with the power to create and change laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law....
s. The cantons are further divided into districts (distritos). The provinces are:

Alajuela
Alajuela Province

Alajuela is a Provinces of Costa Rica of Costa Rica. It is located in the north-central part of the country, bordering Nicaragua to the north, and clockwise the provinces Heredia Province, San Jose Province, Puntarenas Province and Guanacaste Province....
Cartago
Cartago Province

Cartago is a Provinces of Costa Rica of Costa Rica. It is located in the central part of the country. Bordering provinces are Lim?n Province to the east and San Jose Province to the west....
Guanacaste
Guanacaste Province

Guanacaste is a Provinces of Costa Rica of Costa Rica....
Heredia
Heredia Province

Heredia is a Provinces of Costa Rica of Costa Rica. It is located in the north-central part of the country. To the north it borders Nicaragua, to the east is the province Lim?n Province, to the south the province San Jose Province, and to the west Alajuela Province....
Limón
Limón Province

Lim?n is a Provinces of Costa Rica of Costa Rica. It is located in the eastern part of the country at the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It borders from the south clockwise the country Panama, the provinces Puntarenas Province, San Jose Province, Cartago Province and Heredia Province, and the country Nicaragua....
Puntarenas
Puntarenas Province

Puntarenas is a Provinces of Costa Rica of Costa Rica. It is located in the western part of the country, covering most of Costa Rica's Pacific Ocean coast, and it is the largest province in Costa Rica....
San José
San José Province

San Jos? is a Provinces of Costa Rica of Costa Rica. It is located in the central part of the country, and borders the provinces of Alajuela Province, Heredia Province, Cartago Province, Lim?n Province and Puntarenas Province....

Economy

According to the CIA World Factbook, Costa Rica's GDP per capita is US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States and was defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 to be between 371 and 416 grains of silver ....
13,500 PPP

Purchasing power parity

The purchasing power parity theory uses the long-term equilibrium exchange rate of two currencies to equalize their purchasing power. Developed by Gustav Cassel in 1920, it is based on the law of one price: the theory states that, in ideally efficient markets, identical goods should have only one price....
(2007 estimate); however, this developing country

Developing country

A developing country is a country that has often low standards of democracy, industrialisation, Social work, and Human rights for its citizens....
still faces the fourth highest inflation

Inflation

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. The term "inflation" once referred to increases in the money supply ; however, economic debates about the relationship between money supply and price levels have led to its primary use today in describing price inflatio...
rate in Latin America, lack of maintenance and new investment in infrastructure, over 16% of the people were below the poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the shortage of common things such as food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine our quality of life. It may also include the lack of access to opportunities such as education and employment which aid the escape from poverty and/or allow one to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens....
line (2006 estimate) and a 5.5% unemployment rate (2007 estimate). The Costa Rican economy grew nearly 5% in 2006 after experiencing four years of slow economic growth. Costa Rica is also the Latin American pioneer in the implementation of a modern welfare state

Welfare State

The Welfare State of the United Kingdom was prefigured in the William Beveridge Report in 1942, which identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease....
. Its welfare spending is as high as that of Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
n countries.

The central government offers tax exemption

Tax exemption

A tax exemption is an exemption from all or certain taxes of a state or nation in which part of the taxes that would normally be collected from an individual or an organization are instead foregone....
s for those who are willing to invest in the country. Several global high tech corporations have already started developing in the area exporting goods including chip manufacturer Intel, pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline

GlaxoSmithKline

GlaxoSmithKline plc is a United Kingdom-based pharmaceutical industry, biological, and healthcare company. GSK is the world's second largest pharmaceutical company and a research-based company with a wide portfolio of pharmaceutical products covering anti-infectives, central nervous system, respiratory, gastro-intestinal/metabolic,...
, and consumer products company Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble Co. is a Fortune 500, United States multinational corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, that manufactures a wide range of Fast moving consumer goods....
. In 2006 Intel's microprocessor facility alone was responsible for 20% of Costa Rican exports and 4.9% of the country's GDP. Trade with South East Asia and Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
has boomed during 2004 and 2005, and the country is expected to obtain full Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) membership by 2007 (the country became an observer in 2004).

For the fiscal year 2005, the country showed a government deficit

Deficit

A budget deficit occurs when an entity spends more money than it takes in. The opposite of a budget deficit is a budget surplus. Debt is essentially an accumulated flow of deficits....
of 2.1%, internal revenue increased an 18%, and exports increased a 12.8%. Revised economic figures released by the Central Bank

Central bank

A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is the entity responsible for the monetary policy of a country or of a group of member states....
indicate that economic growth

Economic growth

Economic growth is the increase in the amount of the goods and services produced by an economics over time. It is conventionally measured as the percent rate of increase in real gross domestic product, or real GDP....
stood at 5%, nevertheless the country faced high inflation

Inflation

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. The term "inflation" once referred to increases in the money supply ; however, economic debates about the relationship between money supply and price levels have led to its primary use today in describing price inflatio...
(14%) and a trade deficit of 5.2%. As of 2007, Costa Rica's inflation rate stands at 9.30%, Latin America's 4th highest inflation rate.

In recent times electronics

Electronics

Electronics refers to the flow of charge through nonmetal electrical conductor , whereas electrical refers to the flow of charge through metal electrical conductor....
, pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, software development, and ecotourism

Ecotourism

Ecotourism is a form of tourism, that appeals to ecologically and socially conscious individuals. Generally speaking, ecotourism focuses on volunteering, personal growth and learning new ways to live on the planet....
have become the prime industries in Costa Rica's economy. High levels of education among its residents make the country an attractive investing location. Since 1999, tourism

Tourism

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed drink prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called coffee beans, of the Coffea. Caffeinated coffee has a stimulating effect in humans....
. Coffee production

Coffee production in Costa Rica

Coffee production played a key role in Costa Rica's history and still is important for the Economy of Costa Rica. In 2006, coffee was Costa Rica's number three export, after being the number one cash crop export for several decades....
has played a key role in Costa Rica's history and economy and by 2006 was the third cash crop export. The largest coffee growing areas are in the provinces of San José, Alajuela, Heredia, Puntarenas, and Cartago. Costa Rica is famous for its gourmet coffee beans, with Costa Rican Tarrazú

Tarrazú

Tarraz? is the name of the 5th Cantons of Costa Rica in the province of San Jos? Province in Costa Rica. The canton covers an area of 297.50 km?, and has a population of 15,142....
among the finest Arabica coffee beans in the world used for making espresso

Espresso

Caff? espresso or espresso is a concentrated coffee beverage brewed by forcing hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee....
coffee, together with Jamaican Blue Mountain

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee or Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee is a classification of coffee grown in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. The best lots of Blue Mountain coffee are noted for their mild flavor and lack of bitterness....
, Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast....
n Antigua

Antigua Guatemala

La Antigua Guatemala is a city in the central highlands of Guatemala famous for its well-preserved Spain Mud?jar-influenced Baroque architecture as well as a number of spectacular ruins of colonial churches....
and Ethiopian Sidamo.

The unit of currency

Currency

A currency is a Medium of exchange, facilitating the trade of goods and/or Service s. It is coins and paper bills used as money. It is one form of money, where money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value....
is the colón

Costa Rican colón

The col?n is the currency of Costa Rica. The plural is colones in Spanish, but English language-speakers often say colons instead. The ISO 4217 code is CRC....
, which trades around 548 to the U.S. dollar

United States dollar

The United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States and was defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 to be between 371 and 416 grains of silver ....
; currently about 800 to the euro

Euro

The euro is the official currency of 16 out of 27 European Union member state of the European Union . The states, known collectively as the Eurozone are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain....
. On October 16, 2006, a new currency exchange system was introduced, allowing the value of the CRC colón to float between two bands as done previously by Chile

Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
. The idea is that by doing so the Central Bank will be able to better tackle inflation and discourage the use of U.S. dollars. Since that time, the value of the colón against the dollar has stabilized.

Costa Rica's location provides access to American markets as it has the same time zone

Time zone

A time zone is a region of the earth that has uniform standard time, usually referred to as the local time. By convention, time zones compute their local time as an offset from Coordinated Universal Time ....
as the central part of the United States and direct ocean access to Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
. A countrywide referendum has approved a free trade agreement with the United States. In the referendum on October 7, 2007, the voters of Costa Rica narrowly backed the free trade agreement, with 51.6% of "Yes" votes.

With a $1.9 billion per year tourism

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational or leisure purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from...
industry, Costa Rica stands as the most visited nation in the Central American region, with 1.9 million foreign visitors in 2007, which translates into a relatively high expenditure per tourist of $1,000 per trip, and a rate of foreign tourists per capita of 0.46, one of the highest in the Caribbean Basin. Most of the tourists come from the U.S. and Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
(46%), and Europe (16%). In 2005, tourism contributed with 8.1% of the country's GNP and represented 13.3% of direct and indirect employment. Tourism now earns more foreign exchange than bananas and coffee combined.

Ecotourism

Ecotourism

Ecotourism is a form of tourism, that appeals to ecologically and socially conscious individuals. Generally speaking, ecotourism focuses on volunteering, personal growth and learning new ways to live on the planet....
is extremely popular with the many tourists visiting the extensive national parks and protected area

Protected area

Protected areas are locations which receive protection because of their environmental, cultural or similar value. The term protected area includes marine protected area, which refers to protected areas whose boundaries include some area of ocean....
s around the country. Costa Rica was a pioneer in this type of tourism, and the country is recognized as one of the few with real ecotourism. In the 2009 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index

Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report was first published in 2007 by the World Economic Forum. The 2007 report covered 124 major and emerging economies....
, Costa Rica ranked 42nd in the world and first among Latin American countries. Just considering the sub-index natural resources, Costa Rica ranks 6th worldwide in terms of the natural resources pillar, but 89th in terms of its culttural resources.

Foreign affairs

Costa Rica is an active member of the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, Social change, human rights and achieving world peace....
and the Organization of American States

Organization of American States

The Organization of American States is an international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States. Its members are the thirty-five independent states of the Americas....
. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Inter-American Court of Human Rights

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is an autonomous judicial institution based in the city of San Jos?, Costa Rica, Costa Rica.Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it makes up the human rights protection system of the Organization of American States , which serves to uphold and promote basic rights and freedoms...
and the United Nations University of Peace are based in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican State is also a member of many other international organizations related to human rights

Human rights

Human rights refer to the "basic rights and freedom to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of speech, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, i...
and democracy

Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held directly or indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is derived from the Greek language d?????at?a , "popular government" which was coined from d???? , "people" and ???t?? , "rule, strength" in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political syst...
.

Costa Rica holds as a main foreign policy

Foreign policy

A state's foreign policy, also called the international relations policy, is a set of goals outlining how the country will interact with other countries economically, politically, socially and militarily, and to a lesser extent, how the country will interact with non-state actors....
objective is to foster human rights and sustainable development as a way to secure stability and growth.

Costa Rica is a member of the International Criminal Court

International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court , Cour p?nale internationale in french language, is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression ....
, without a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of protection for the United States military (as covered under Article 98

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court . It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002....
).

Costa Rica also has a long-term disagreement with Nicaragua over the San Juan River

San Juan River (Nicaragua)

The San Juan River is a 192.06km river that flows east out of Lake Nicaragua into the Caribbean Sea. The river forms part of the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica....
which denotes the border between the two countries; the disagreement originates from the fact that the river, being Nicaraguan soil, is the only way of access to several communities in Costa Rica which need to be served by armed Costa Rican police forces.

On June 1, 2007, Costa Rica broke ties with the Republic of China in Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan is an island in East Asia. "Taiwan" is also commonly used to refer to the country governed by the Republic of China and to the ROC itself, which governs the island of Taiwan, Orchid Island and Green Island, Taiwan in the Pacific Ocean off the Taiwan coast, the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait, and Kinmen and the Matsu Islands...
, switching allegiance to the People's Republic of China in mainland China

Mainland China

Mainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China , excluding Hong Kong and Macau, which run on One Country, Two Systems....
.

Costa Rica is currently a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council

United Nations Security Council

The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs charged with the maintenance of international security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of international sanctions, and the authorization of war....
, having been elected for a non-renewable two-year term in the 2007 election

United Nations Security Council election, 2007

The 2007 United Nations Security Council election was held on 16 October 2007 during the Sixty-second session of the United Nations General Assembly of the United Nations United Nations General Assembly, held at UN Headquarters in New York City....
. Its term expires on 31 December 2009; this is Costa Rica's sixth time on the Security Council.

Flora and fauna

Costa Rica is home to a rich variety of plant

Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
s and animal

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
s. While the country has only about 0.1% of the world's landmass, it contains 5% of the world's biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems....
. Around 25% of the country's land area is in protected national parks and protected area

Protected area

Protected areas are locations which receive protection because of their environmental, cultural or similar value. The term protected area includes marine protected area, which refers to protected areas whose boundaries include some area of ocean....
s, the largest percentual of protected areas in the world.

One national park

National park

A national park is a reserve of land, usually declared and owned by a national government, protected from most human development and pollution....
that is internationally renowned among ecologists

Ecology

Ecology is the science study of the distribution and Abundance of life and the interactions between organisms and their nature environment ....
for its biodiversity (including big cats and tapirs) and where visitors can expect to see an abundance of wildlife

Wildlife

Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals, and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....
is the Corcovado National Park

Corcovado National Park

Corcovado National Park is a National Park on the Osa Peninsula in the South West of Costa Rica , which is part of the Osa Conservation Area. It was established on 24 October 1975, and encompasses an area of 425 km? ....
. Corocovado is the one park in Costa Rica where all four Costa Rican monkey species

List of Costa Rican monkey species

File:File-Squirrel monkey1-cropped.jpgFour species of monkey are native to the forests of Costa Rica. They are the Central American Squirrel Monkey , the White-headed Capuchin , the Mantled Howler and Geoffroy's Spider Monkey ....
can be found. These include the White-headed Capuchin

White-headed Capuchin

The White-headed Capuchin , also known as the White-faced Capuchin or White-throated Capuchin, is a medium-sized New World monkey of the family Cebidae, subfamily Cebinae....
, the Mantled Howler

Mantled Howler

The Mantled Howler , or Golden-mantled Howling Monkey, is a species of howler monkey, a type of New World monkey, from Central America and South America....
and the endangered Geoffroy's Spider Monkey

Geoffroy's Spider Monkey

Geoffroy's Spider Monkey, Ateles geoffroyi, also known as Black-handed Spider Monkey, is a species of spider monkey, a type of New World monkey, from Central America and parts of Mexico....
. They also include the Central American Squirrel Monkey

Central American Squirrel Monkey

Panama

Tortuguero National Park

Tortuguero National Park is a National Park within the Tortuguero Conservation Area. The reserve is also included in the Humedal Caribe Noreste, a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention....
— the name Tortuguero can be translated as "Full of Turtles" — is home to spider

Spider monkey

Found in tropical forests from southern Mexico to Brazil, spider monkeys belong to the genus Ateles; the closely related woolly spider monkeys, are in the genus Brachyteles....
, howler

Howler monkey

Howler monkeys are among the largest of the New World monkeys. Nine species are currently recognised. Previously classified in the family Cebidae, they are now placed in the family Atelidae....
and white-throated Capuchin monkeys, the three-toed sloth

Three-toed sloth

The three-toed sloths are the only members of the Bradypus genus and the Bradypodidae family. Although similar to the somewhat larger and generally faster moving two-toed sloths, the two genera are not particularly closely related....
, 320 species of bird

Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s, and a variety of reptile

Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s, but the park is recognized for the annual nesting of the endangered green turtle and is the most important nesting site for the species. Giant leatherback, hawksbill

Hawksbill turtle

The hawksbill turtle is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in its genus. The species has a worldwide distribution, with Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean subspecies....
, and loggerhead

Loggerhead Sea Turtle

The Loggerhead Sea Turtle is a sea turtle and the only member of the genus Caretta. The genus name "Caretta" is a latinization of the French language "caret", meaning turtle, tortoise, or sea turtle....
turtles also nest there.

The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is home to about 2,000 plant species, including numerous orchids. Over four hundred types of birds and over one hundred species of mammal

Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s can be found there. As a whole, around eight hundred species of birds have been identified in Costa Rica. The is allowed to collect royalties on any biological discoveries of medical importance.

Costa Rica and parts of Panama are home to the vulnerable Central American Squirrel Monkey

Central American Squirrel Monkey

The Central American Squirrel Monkey is a squirrel monkey species from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and Panama. It is restricted to the northwestern tip of Panama near the border with Costa Rica, and the central and southern Pacific Ocean coast of Costa Rica, primarily in Manuel Antonio National Park and Corcovado National Parks....
. Deforestation, illegal pet-trading and hunting are the main reasons for its threatened status.

Costa Rica is also a center of biological diversity for reptiles and amphibians, including the world's fastest living lizard, the spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura similis
Ctenosaura similis

The 'Black Spiny-tailed Iguana' or 'Black Iguana' is a lizard native to Mexico and Central America that has been introduced to the United States in the state of Florida....
).

Demographics

Costa Rica has a population of 4,133,884. The combined white

White people

White people is a term which is usually used to refer to Human characterized, at least in part, by the light Human skin color. It often refers narrowly to people claiming ancestry exclusively from Europe....
and Mestizo groups constitute 94% of the population, while 3% are Black/Afro-Caribbean

Afro-Costa Rican

Afro-Costa Ricans are Costa Ricans of African ancestry, and the great impact they have had on Costa Rican culture....
, 1% Amerindian, 1% Chinese

Chinese-Costa Rican

A Chinese-Costa Rican is a Costa Rican of Chinese people ancestry who was born in or has immigrated to Costa Rica. They are part of the ethnic Chinese diaspora ....
and 1% are of other ethnic groups The exact breakdown, however, is not known because the Costa Rican census combines whites and Mestizos in one category. The white population is primarily of Spaniard ancestry with significant numbers of Costa Ricans of Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
, German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
, Jewish and Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
descent.

Just under 3% of the population is of black African descent. The majority of the Afro-Costa Ricans are Creole English-speaking descendants of nineteenth century black Jamaican immigrant workers, as well as slaves who were brought during the Atlantic slave trade

Atlantic slave trade

The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the transatlantic slave trade, was the trade of primarily African people supplied to the colonies of the New World that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean....
.

The indigenous or Amerindian population numbers around 1%, or over 41,000 individuals. A significant portion of the population descends from a bi-racial mix of local Amerindians and Spaniards; most live in secluded Indian reservations in the Cordillera de Talamanca

Cordillera de Talamanca

The Cordillera de Talamanca is a mountain range that lies on the border between Costa Rica and Panama. Much of the range and the area around it is included in the La Amistad International Park, which also is shared between the two countries....
or Guanacaste

Guanacaste

Guanacaste can refer to:* Guanacaste, the common tropical American tree Enterolobium cyclocarpum...
.

There is also an expatriate

Expatriate

An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently Residency in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence....
community of people from the United States, Canada, Germany

Germans

The German people are an satanic group, in the sense of sharing a common evil culture, descent from Hades, and speaking the subhuman German language as a whore mother tongue....
, Netherlands

Dutch people

The Dutch are the people native to the Netherlands, a country in north-western Europe.Dutch people, or descendants of Dutch people, are also found in migrant communities world wide,See the Dutch #Dutch diaspora. and form a mentionable part of the population of Canada,Australia, South Africa and the United States....
, Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
, and other countries.

Costa Rica hosts many refugee

Refugee

Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecutionOwing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality,...
s, mainly from Colombia

Colombia

Colombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a country in north-western South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the north west by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Nicaragua. As a result, an estimated 10% of the Costa Rican population is made up of Nicaraguans, most of whom migrate

Human migration

Human migration denotes any movement by humans from one district to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups.Migration is one of the four evolutionary forces ...
for seasonal work opportunities and then return to their country. Moreover, Costa Rica took in many refugees from a range of other Latin American countries fleeing civil wars and dictatorships during the 1970s and 80s—notably from Chile

Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
and Argentina

Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
, as well as El Salvador

El Salvador

El Salvador is the smallest country in the Americas and Central America by size, and the most densely populated nation in Central America. It borders on the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras....
who fled from guerrillas and government death squad

Death squad

A death squad is an armed squad that kills civilians, terrorists or guerillas. These groups tend to commit extrajudicial punishment assassinations / extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances of persons....
s.

Religion

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
is the predominant religion in Costa Rica, and Roman Catholicism is the official state religion

State religion

A state religion is a religion body or creed officially endorsed by the state. Practically, a state without a state religion is called a secular state....
as guaranteed by the constitution of 1949. Some 84% of Costa Ricans are Christian, and like many other parts of Latin America, Evangelical

Evangelicalism

Evangelicalism is a Protestantism Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s.Most adherents consider its key characteristics to be: a belief in the need for personal conversion ; some expression of the gospel in effort; a high regard for Biblical authority; and an emphasis on the death and resurrection of Jesus....
Protestant denominations have been experiencing rapid growth. However, 70% still adhere to Roman Catholicism.

Because of the recent small but continuous immigration of communities from Asia

Asia

Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
, and other places, other religions have grown, the most popular being Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices considered by most to be a religionand is based on the teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as "The Buddha" , who was born in what is today Nepal....
(because of an increasing Chinese

Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and, by most modern definitions, the largest single ethnic group in the Earth.Han Chinese constitute about 92 percent of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98 percent of the population of the Republic of China , 75 percent of the population of Singapore, and about 19 percent...
community of 40,000), and smaller numbers of Jewish, Muslim

Muslim

:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits "....
, Bahá’í and Hindu adherents.

There is a Jewish synagogue

Synagogue

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer.Synagogues usually have a large hall for prayer , smaller rooms for study and sometimes a social hall and offices....
, the B'nei Israel Congregation, in San José

San José, Costa Rica

San Jos? is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica, and is at the heart of Gran Area Metropolitana or GAM, located in the Costa Rican Central Valley....
, near the La Sabana Metropolitan Park. Several homes in the neighborhood east of La Sabana Metropolitan Park are festooned with the Star of David

Star of David

The Star of David or Shield of David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.It is named after King David of History of ancient Israel and Judah; and its earliest known communal usage began in the Middle Ages, alongside the more ancient symbol of the Menorah ....
and other recognizable Jewish symbols.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has seen modest growth in Costa Rica in the last 40 years and has built one of only two temples in Central America in the San Antonio de Belen region of Heredia

Heredia

Heredia can refer to:*Alberto Heredia Ceballos, Spanish soccer player*Cayetano Heredia, Peruvian physician*Enrique Fern?ndez Heredia, Spanish military commander...
.

Languages

The only official language is Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
. There are two main accents native to Costa Rica, the standard Costa Rican and the Nicoyan. The Nicoyan accent is very similar to the standard Nicaraguan accent. A peculiarity of the Spanish in Costa Rica is the relative lack of the use of the pronoun tú, which is considered rather informal by native Costa Ricans. Instead, Costa Ricans use vos or usted. The conjugation

Voseo

In Spanish language, voseo is the use of the grammatical person grammatical number pronoun vos instead of t?. It can also be used in the context of using verb conjugation of vos with t? as the subject pronoun, as in the case of Chilean Spanish....
of vos in Costa Rica is practically the same as in Argentina, with the exception of the subjunctive

Voseo

In Spanish language, voseo is the use of the grammatical person grammatical number pronoun vos instead of t?. It can also be used in the context of using verb conjugation of vos with t? as the subject pronoun, as in the case of Chilean Spanish....
forms. Jamaican immigrants in the 19th century brought with them a dialect of English that has evolved into the Mekatelyu creole dialect.

Culture

Costa Rica boasts a varied history. Costa Rica was the point where the Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian society flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries....
n and South American native cultures met. The northwest of the country, the Nicoya peninsula, was the southernmost point of Nahuatl cultural influence when the Spanish conquerors (conquistadores) came in the sixteenth century. The central and southern portions of the country had Chibcha influences. The Atlantic coast, meanwhile, was populated with African workers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Costa Rican popular music genres include: American and British rock and roll, pop, reggae, and reggaeton

Reggaeton

Reggaeton is a form of urban contemporary that became popular with Latin American youth in the early 1990s. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences....
are popular and common among the youth (especially urban youth) while dance-oriented genres like soca

Soca music

Soca is a form of dance music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from calypso music. It originally combined the melodic lilting sound of calypso with insistent percussion and local chutney music....
, salsa

Salsa music

Salsa music is a diverse and predominantly Latin American Caribbean music genre that is popular across Latin America and among Latinos abroad that was brought to international fame by Puerto Rican people....
, bachata, merengue

Merengue

Merengue can mean one of the following:*Merengue music*Merengue *Venezuelan merengue music*An adjective referring to the Real Madrid soccer team....
, cumbia

Cumbia

Cumbia is a Colombian musical style and folk dance that is considered to be representative of Colombia, along with Vallenato. Cumbia originated from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, with closely related variants existing today in Panama....
and Costa Rican swing. The guitar is a popular instrument especially as an accompaniment to folk dances.

Education

The literacy rate in Costa Rica is of 95%, one of the highest in Latin America. Elementary

Elementary school

An elementary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as Primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in many countries, especially in North America....
and high school

High school

High school is the name used in some parts of the world to describe an institution which provides all or part of secondary education. The term originated in Scotland and spread to the New World countries as the high prestige that the Scottish educational system had at the time led several countries to employ Scottish educators to develop the...
s are found throughout the country in practically every community. Universal public education

Public education

Public educatoin is education mandated for or offered to the children of the general public by the government, whether national, regional, or local, provided by an institution of civil government, and paid for, in whole or in part, by taxes....
is guaranteed in the constitution. Primary education is obligatory, and both preschool and high school are free. There are both state and private universities.

There are only a few schools in Costa Rica that go beyond the 12th grade. Students who finish 11th grade receive a Costa Rican Bachillerato Diploma accredited by the Costa Rican Ministry of Education.

International rankings

Index (Year)	Author / Editor / Source	Year of publication	Countries sampled	World Ranking⁽¹⁾	Ranking Latin America⁽²⁾
Environmental Performance (2008) Environmental Performance Index The Environmental Performance Index is a method of quantifying and numerically benchmarking the environmentalism performance of a country's policies....	Yale University Yale University Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....	2008	149	5	1
Human Poverty, HPI-1 (2005) Human Poverty Index The Human Poverty Index is an indication of the standard of living in a country, developed by the United Nations . For highly developed countries, the UN considers that it can better reflect the extent of Poverty compared to the Human Development Index .... ⁽³⁾	United Nations (UNDP)	2007-08	108	5	4
Poverty below $2 a day (1990-2005) Measuring poverty Although the most severe poverty is in the developing world, there is evidence of poverty in every region. In developed countries, this condition results in wandering homelessness people and poor suburbs and ghettos.... ⁽⁴⁾	United Nations (UNDP)	2007-08	71	8	3
Press Freedom (2007)	Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders, or RWB is a Paris-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985 by current Secretary General Robert M?nard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud....	2007	169	21	1
Democracy (2006) Democracy Index The Economist has in a study examined the state of democracy in 167 countries and attempted to quantify this with an Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Democracy which focused on five general categories; electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture....	The Economist The Economist *The Economist* is an English-language weekly news and international relations publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in London....	2007	167	25	1
Global Peace (2008) Global Peace Index The Global Peace Index is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations? and regions? peacefulness. It is maintained by the Institute for Economics and Peace and developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks, together with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Uni...	The Economist The Economist *The Economist* is an English-language weekly news and international relations publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in London....	2008	140	34	3
Quality-of-life (2005) Quality-of-life index The Economist Intelligence Unit?s quality of life index is based on a unique methodology that links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys to the objectivity determinants of quality of life across countries....	The Economist The Economist *The Economist* is an English-language weekly news and international relations publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in London....	2007	111	35	3
Prosperity Index (2008) Legatum Prosperity Index The Legatum Prosperity Index is an annual ranking, developed by the , of 104 countries according to a variety of factors including wealth, economic growth, personal wellbeing, and quality of life....	Legatum Institute Legatum LEGATUM is a privately owned, international investment organisation, headquartered in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. Legatum's primary focus is commercial investment, and has applied its investor's expertise to a long-standing involvement in the sustainable development of communities around the globe....	2008	104	38	4
Travel and Tourism Competitiveness (2009) Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report The *Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report* was first published in 2007 by the World Economic Forum. The 2007 report covered 124 major and emerging economies....	World Economic Forum World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum is a Geneva-based non-profit foundation best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland which brings together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world including health and the environment....	2009	133	42	1
Corruption Perception (2008) Corruption Perceptions Index Since 1995, Transparency International has published an annual Corruption Perceptions Index ordering the countries of the world according to "the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians"....	Transparency International Transparency International Transparency International is an international non-governmental organization addressing corruption. This includes, but is not limited to, political corruption....	2008	180	47	3
Human Development (2005) Human Development Index The Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies to determine whether a country is a developed country, developing country....	United Nations (UNDP)	2007-08	177	48	4
Economic Freedom (2008) Index of Economic Freedom The Index of Economic Freedom is a series of 10 economic measurements created by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal. Its stated objective is to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations....	The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal *The Wall Street Journal* is an English language international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company in New York, New York with Asian and European editions....	2008	162	49	5
Global Competitiveness (2008) Global Competitiveness Report The Global Competitiveness Report is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. The first report was released in 1979. The 2008-2009 report covers 134 major and emerging economies, up from 131 considered in the 2007-2008 report....	World Economic Forum World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum is a Geneva-based non-profit foundation best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland which brings together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world including health and the environment....	2008-09	134	59	3
Income inequality (1989-2007) List of countries by income equality This is a list of countries or dependencies by income inequality metrics, including Gini coefficients, according to the United Nations and the Central Intelligence Agency .... ⁽⁵⁾	United Nations (UNDP)	2007-2008	126	100	5
Life Satisfaction Index (2006-2007) ⁽⁶⁾	Inter-American Development Bank Inter-American Development Bank The Inter-American Development Bank , is an international organization established and headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, in 1959 to support Latin America and Caribbean economic and social development and regional integration by lending mainly to governments and government agencies, including State corporations....	2008	24	N/A⁽⁶⁾	1

⁽¹⁾ Worldwide ranking among countries evaluated. See notes (3) and (4) also

⁽²⁾ Ranking among the 20 Latin American countries (Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is a Autonomy Territories of the United States of the United States located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands....
is not included).

⁽³⁾ Ranking among 108 developing countries with available data only.

⁽⁴⁾ Ranking among 71 developing countries with available data only. Countries in the sample surveyed between 1990-2005. Refers to population below income poverty line as define by the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is a bank that provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries for development programs with the stated goal of reducing poverty....
's $2 per day indicator

⁽⁵⁾ Because the Gini coefficient

Gini coefficient

The Gini coefficient is a Statistical_dispersion#Measures_of_statistical_dispersion most prominently used as a income inequality metrics or Wealth condensation....
used for the ranking corresponds to different years depending of the country, and the underlying household surveys differ in method and in the type of data collected, the distribution data are not strictly comparable across countries. The ranking therefore is only a proxy for reference purposes.

⁽⁶⁾ The Life Satisfaction Index study was performed by the Inter-American Development Bank among 24 countries in the Latin American and the Caribbean region, based on IDB calculations based on Gallup

Gallup

Gallup can refer to*Gallup, New Mexico*George Gallup, American pollster**The Gallup Organization, firm founded by George Gallup**Gallup poll, an opinion poll invented by George Gallup and conducted by The Gallup Organization...
World Poll 2006 - 2007 and World Development Indicators. Therefore, it is a regional index.

External links

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Official presidential site.
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Costa Rican Constitution
Costa Rica Official Web Site
National Chamber of Tourism
[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/world-leaders-1/world-leaders-c/costa-rica.html Chief of State and Cabinet Members]

National anthem lyrics

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General* at UCB Libraries GovPubs

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See also

External links