Portal:Costa Rica

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The Costa Rica Portal

Introduction

Republic of Costa Rica
República de Costa Rica (Spanish)
Anthem: "Himno Nacional de Costa Rica" (Spanish)
"National Anthem of Costa Rica"
ISO 3166 codeCR

Costa Rica (UK: /ˌkɒstə ˈrkə/, US: /ˌkstə-/ ; Spanish: [ˈkosta ˈrika]; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica (Spanish: República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America. Costa Rica is bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million0 in a land area of 51,060 km2 (19,710 sq mi). An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, with around two million people in the surrounding metropolitan area.

The sovereign state is a unitary presidential constitutional republic. It has a long-standing and stable democracy and a highly educated workforce. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism. Many foreign manufacturing and services companies operate in Costa Rica's Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives.

Costa Rica was inhabited by indigenous peoples before coming under Spanish rule in the 16th century. It remained a peripheral colony of the empire until independence as part of the First Mexican Empire, followed by membership in the Federal Republic of Central America, from which it formally declared independence in 1847. Following the brief Costa Rican Civil War in 1948, it permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming one of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army. (Full article...)

The Costa Rica Quiz

 Of the 500,000 species of life that Costa Rica is home to, how many are icon insects?

Hint
It's probably more than you think it is.
Answer
300,000 species are insects.[1]
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Indigenous people of Costa Rica, or Native Costa Ricans, are the people who lived in what is now Costa Rica prior to European and African contact and the descendants of those peoples. About 114,000 indigenous people live in the country, comprising 2.4% of the total population. Indigenous Costa Ricans strive to keep their cultural traditions and languages alive.

In 1977, the government passed the Indigenous Law, which created reserves. There are a total of 24 indigenous territories located throughout Costa Rica. After only gaining the right to vote in 1994, they are still fighting for their rights, particularly regarding the government taking over their land and ignoring the articles which protect them. While indigenous people have struggled for legal recognition of their rights, Costa Rica did sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated)

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...that the Irazú Volcano in Costa Rica erupted violently in 1963, on the day U.S. President John F. Kennedy arrived in the country?

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References

  1. ^ "Biodiversity in Costa Rica". Archived from the original on 2011-11-18. Retrieved 2007-04-18.
  2. ^ "Compulsory Voting". Internateal IDEA. Retrieved 9 Dec 2023.
  3. ^ State-sponsored Homophobia A world survey of laws prohibiting same sex activity between consenting adults[dead link] Archived 17 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Trejos, Alonso (1991). Geografía Ilustrada Costa Rica (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: Trejos Editores. p. 128. ISBN 9977-54-029-2.