Costa Rica
Costa Rica (officially Republic of Costa Rica) is a country in Central America, with its capital at San José, and is home to roughly 5.1M people.
Spanish is the official language; the currency in circulation is Costa Rican colón (₡); people from here are called Costa Rican.
- »Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948 and has not had one since.
- »It holds around 5% of the world's known species in about 0.03% of its land area.
- »It runs on almost entirely renewable electricity.
Costa Rica touches two neighbours: Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the east. Directions run from one centre to the other.
San José grew around a tobacco trade and became capital after a brief civil conflict in 1823. It sits in the Central Valley, where most of the country's population lives.
51,470 km² (19,873 sq mi), 127th largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Population 5,129,910, 126th of 198 on file. That averages 100 per km² (258 per sq mi).
Modelled on the French tricolour after the 1848 revolution, with a red band added by the president's wife. Blue is the sky, white peace, red the warmth of the people.