ABOUT COSTA RICA
GENERAL INFORMATION
Costa Rica is a small territory (51,100 Km2) located in Central America. It is a free country since 1821. This great tourism destination is full of biological diversity. Costa Rica borders with Panamá on the southeast, Nicaragua on the north, the Caribbean Sea on the south and the Pacific Ocean on the west.
The country has seven provinces: Alajuela, Cartago, Guanacaste, Heredia, Limon, Puntarenas and the capital San Jose.
The official coin is the “Colón”. Five hundred “colones” are equals to one dollar.
The country has an estimated of 4.133.884 people (2007) and a demographic density of 82 inh/km2. Spanish is the official language, but in the zone of Limon, people talk English and a few other dialects too.
Catholicism is the main religion but there are also different kinds of cults that people practices without any problem since 1860.
Costa Rica is one of the countries in Latin America with more alphabetization; 95% of its population can read and write. Here the primary school and the high school are free and obligatory from 7 to 18 years old.
The Costa Rican territory is crossed for a lot of mountains and volcanoes. The taller peak is “Chirripó Grande” with 3.819 meters and the biggest and famous Volcano is the Irazu with 3.432 m.
The Atlantic coastline is 212 km long. In the other side the Pacific coastline is 1.466 km long. National coasts have an outstanding quantity of exuberant beaches and attractive places for tourism. The hydrographic network of the country has some important rivers that help to produce electricity.
Costa Rica has basically a tropical weather with two seasons, the summer or the dry one which goes from December to April; and the winter or the rainy one that goes from May to November. The weather is warm and humid especially on coasts prairies and until 1,000 high meters. In these regions the temperature´s average is around 28 ºC.
On central region of the country normally the temperature´s average goes from 15ºc to 25ºc. This particular kind of weather makes 47% the country to be full of Forrest and green patches. The annual rainfall average exceeds 2,500mm.
Costa Rican laws protect some species in extinction danger and 9.3% of Costa Rican territory is dedicated to national parks and natural reserves. The country also has more than a thousand kinds of orchids and 225 species of reptiles, mostly snakes. This beautiful territory has a great variety of wild animals like pumas, jaguars, deer, monkeys, coyotes and armadillos and 725 different bird´s species. Bird watchers will find Quetzal, Jilguero and Colibri, among many others.
The country has a big public system of social security under Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social supervision, the Government´s institution to supervise public health.
Costa Rican authorities have made big efforts to bring medical assistance to people from most remote places. Besides there is a highest quality system of private medical services that offers specialized treatments to many people.
All of these efforts contribute to increase the Costa Rican people life´s average to 75 years and to keep a healthier population with a low index of mortality compares to annual rate of births.
The country has two important aerial accesses out of the capital city. The most important is the Juan Santamaria National Airport that is located in Alajuela´s province, 18km from San Jose. The other one is the Daniel Oduber Quiros Airport, located in Liberia, Guanacaste, 234km from San Jose.
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