Costa Rica has a surface of almost 51,000 square kilometers, which is a bit more than the surface of the state of Niedersachsen(Germany). Costa Rica has many treasures, but not so many natural resources. It is a pure natural country and contains many natural wonders: active volcanoes with bubbling hot springs, tropical rain forests, elves forests, cloud forests, tropical rivers that invite you to rafting, wetlands, fantastic beaches off the Pacific and Atlantic Coast, an incredible variety of flora and fauna and so much more.
The extraordinary thing about Costa Rica is that everything is well protected, not only by law, but also by the very conscious general population.
A former president was awarded with the Nobel Prize of Peace, the entire country is peaceful, has no military army, and is a good example for democracy.
- Area: 51,000 km2
- Population: 4,4 millions
- Language: official language is Spanish, but there are also Patois, and native languages
- Religion: 77% of the religion is catholic, and 14% protestants
- Goverment: Presidential Republic
Years ago, the government found out that there is a gap in the global market. If a country protects its enviroment, it could make a country very special. Therefore, the tourism is used as a tool to protect the nature. There are countless examples showing this in Costa Rica. One example are the Eco-hotels.
In the rainforest most plants and animals are living far away from the ground. Life is not found on the forests floor, but the leafy world 20 or 30 meters above the ground, called the canopy. The canopy is made of the overlapping branches and leaves of big rainforest trees. Its name "Canopy" is also used for a very popular activity in Costa Rica.
The very, very typical dish is the "Casado". It consists of rice, black beans, fried plantains (platanos) and chicken, meat or fish. The "Casado" is eaten for lunch and dinner, you can get it quite cheap at the more basic restaurants here.
In Costa Rica, especially in the southern regions, you can find some carefully worked huge granite spheres. Some are up to 2 meters big. Nobody knows what they mean, there are many speculations, even aliens play a role. For example, in Sierpe, where you get into the boat to Drake Bay and Corcovado National Park, you can find many of those balls.
Imagine a European driving style: fast, opinionated, loyal and pedantic rules, combined with Latin American mentality: an inability to drive straight, and defect vehicles. That is what Costa Rican traffic is like. You must always drive carefully and never ignore the way, even though not everything is clearly visible and pedestrians can cross the street everywhere.
Protected areas, such as national parks and bio reserves, make up more than a quarter of the countries area. It is the first tropical country that seeks to achieve the reversing of deforestation. Many reforestation projects - private initiatives with government support, are based in Costa Rica.
The most important sector is tourism. In 2008, with nearly 1.5 million foreign visitors, up to $ 1.8 billion were generated in sales, which goes quite directly to the public good.
The contribution of agriculture to gross domestic product in 2005 was only of 7.9%.
In this time, men startet to cultivate land. But it was an extremely low population density. It has been estimated with the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th Century, at this time there were only 100,000 people living in the area of Costa Rica.
In 2015 for two and a half months, Costa Rica did not burn one single barrel of oil to produce or import energy.
You can still feel the peaceful attitude of the country today. Since the 19th century there were just two short violent periods, that were both settled by the democratic government.
President José Figueres Ferrer disestablished the army by a constitutional amendment on 8 May 1949.