Accounts differ as to whether the name la costa rica (Spanish for rich coast ) was first applied by

Historians have classified the indigenous people of Costa Rica as belonging to the Intermediate Area, where the peripheries of the Mesoamerican and Andean native cultures overlapped. More recently, pre-Columbian Costa Rica has also been described as part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area. The northwest of the country, northwest airline reservations Nicoya Peninsula, was the southernmost reach of the Nahuatl culture when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century.[citation needed] The rest of the country was influenced by various northwest airline reservations Chibcha speaking indigenous groups.
The impact of indigenous peoples on modern northwest airline reservations Costa Rican culture has been relatively small compared to other nations, northwest airline reservations since the country lacked a strong native civilization to begin with. Most of the native population was absorbed northwest airline reservations into the Spanish-speaking colonial society through northwest airline reservations inter-marriage, except for some small remnants, the most significant of which are the Bribri and Boruca tribes who still inhabit the mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca, in the southern part of Costa Rica, near the frontier with Panama.
northwest airline reservations Accounts differ as to whether the name la costa rica (Spanish for rich coast ) was first applied by Christopher Columbus, who sailed to the eastern shores of Costa Rica during his final voyage in 1502 and reported the presence of vast quantities northwest airline reservations of gold jewelry among the natives or by the conquistador Gil González Dávila, who landed on the west coast in 1522, met with the natives, and appropriated some of their gold.
During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, which was nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (i.e., Mexico), northwest airline reservations but which in practice operated as a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish northwest airline reservations Empire. Costa Rica s distance from the capital in Guatemala, its legal prohibition under Spanish law to trade with its southern neighbors northwest airline reservations in Panama, then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (i.e., Colombia), and the lack of resources, such as gold and silver, made Costa Rica into a poor, isolated, and sparsely inhabited region within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica was described as the poorest northwest airline reservations and most miserable Spanish colony in all America by a Spanish governor in 1719.
Another important factor behind Costa Rica s poverty was the lack of a significant indigenous population available for Encomienda (forced labor), which meant most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work on their own land, preventing the establishment of large haciendas (properties). For all these reasons, Costa Rica was by and large unappreciated and overlooked by the Spanish Crown and left to develop northwest airline reservations on its own. The circumstances during this period are believed to have led to many of the idiosyncrasies for which Costa Rica has become known, while concomitantly 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 settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil and a milder climate than that of the lowlands.
Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On September 15, 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–21), the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. That date is still celebrated as Independence Day in Costa Rica, even though, technically, under the Spanish Constitution of 1812 that had been readopted in 1820, Nicaragua and Costa Rica had become an autonomous province with its capital in León.
Like other Central American nations, Costa Rica joined the short-lived First Mexican Empire of Agustín de Iturbide but, after its collapse in 1823, Costa Rica became instead a province of the new Federal Republic of Central America, which theoretically existed from 1823 to 1839, but which exercised a very loose authority over its constituent provinces, particularly the poor and remote Costa Rica. In 1824, the Costa Rican capital was moved to San José, leading to a brief outburst northwest airline reservations of violence over rivalry northwest airline reservations with the old capital, Cartago. While civil wars raged both among the provinces of the Federal Republic of Central America and between political northwest airline reservations factions within individual provinces, Costa Rica remained largely at peace.
In 1838, long after the Federal Republic of Central America ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign. The considerable distance and poor communication routes between Guatemala City and the Central Plateau, where most of the Costa Rican population lived then and still lives now, meant the local population had little allegiance to the federal northwest airline reservations government in Guatemala. From colonial times to now, Costa Rica s reluctance to become northwest airline reservations politically tied with the rest of Central America has been a major obstacle to efforts for greater regional integration.
Coffee was first planted in Costa Rica in the early 19th century, and was first shipped to Europe in 1843, soon becoming Costa Rica s first major export. Coffee production would remain Costa Rica s principal source of wealth well into the 20th century. Most of the coffee northwest airline reservations exported was grown around the main centers of population in the Central Plateau and then transported by oxcart northwest airline reservations to the Pacific port of Puntarenas. Since the main market for the coffee was in Europe, it soon became a high priority to develop a transportation route from the Central Plateau to the Atlantic Ocean. For this purpose, in the 1870s, the Costa Rican government contracted with U.S. businessman Minor C. Keith to build a railroad to the Caribbean port of Limón. Despite enormous difficulties with construction, disease, and financing, northwest airline reservations the railroad was completed in 1890.
Most Afro-Costa Ricans, who constitute about 3% of the country s population, descend from Jamaican immigrants who worked northwest airline reservations in the construction of that railway. States convicts, Italians and Chinese immigrants also participated in the construction project. In exchange for completing northwest airline reservations the railroad, the Costa Rican government granted Keith large tracts of land and a lease on the train route, northwest airline reservations which he used to produce bananas and export them to the United States. As a result, bananas came to rival coffee as the principal Costa Rican export, while foreign-owned corporations (including the United Fruit Company) began to hold a major role in the national economy.[citation needed]20th century
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 19th century, however, Costa Rica has experienced two significant periods of violence. In 1917–19, General Federico Tinoco Granados ruled as a military dictator until he was overthrown and forced into exile. The unpopularity of Tinoco s regime northwest airline reservations led, after he was overthrown, to a considerable decline in the size, wealth, and political influence of the Costa Rican military. In 1948, José Figueres Ferrer led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election between northwest airline reservations the previous president Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (he served as president between 1940 and 1944) and Otilio Ulate Blanco.[28] With more than 2,000 dead, the resulting 44-day Costa Rican Civil War was the bloodiest event in Costa Rica during the 20th century.
The victorious rebels formed a government junta that abolished the military altogether, and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution by a democratically elected northwest airline reservations assembly.[29] Having enacted these reforms, the junta relinquished its power on November 8, 1949, to the new democratic government. After the coup d état, Figueres northwest airline reservations became a national hero, winning the country s first democratic election under the new constitution in 1953. Since then, Costa Rica has held 13 presidential elections, the latest in 2010. All of them have been widely regarded by the international community as peaceful and transparent.
Costa Rica is located on the Central northwest airline reservations American isthmus, lying between latitudes 8° and 12°N, and longitudes 82° and 86°W. It borders the Caribbean Sea (to the east) and the Pacific Ocean (to the west), with a total of 1,290 kilometres (800 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 or 192 mi of border) and Panama to the south-southeast (639 km or 397 mi of border). In total, Costa Rica comprises 51,100 square kilometres (19,700 sq mi) plus 589 square kilometres (227 sq mi) of territorial waters.
The highest point in the country is Cerro Chirripó, at 3,819 metres northwest airline reservations (12,530 ft); it is the fifth highest peak in Central America. The highest volcano in the country is the Irazú Volcano (3,431 northwest airline reservations m or 11,257 ft). The largest lake in Costa Rica is Lake Arenal.
Costa Rica also comprises several islands. Cocos Island (24 square kilometres / 9.3 square miles) stands out because of its distance from continental landmass, 300 mi (480 km) from Puntarenas, but Calero northwest airline reservations Island is the largest island of the country (151.6 square kilometres / 58.5 square northwest airline reservations miles). Over 25% of Costa Rica s national territory is protected by SINAC (the National System of Conservation Areas), which oversees all of the country s protected areas. Costa Rica also possesses the greatest density of species in the world.
Because Costa Rica is located between 8 and 12 degrees north of the Equator, the climate is tropical year round. However, the country has many microclimates depending on elevation, northwest airline reservations rainfall, topography, and by the geography of each particular region.
Costa Rica s seasons are defined northwest airline reservations by how much rain falls during a particular period and not to the four seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. The year can be split into two periods, the dry season known to the residents as summer, and the rainy season, known locally as winter. The summer or dry