Costa Rica is a small green country located in Central America, only 51,100 square kilometers. It has immense beautiful tropical forests, all types of flowers and plants like hydrangeas, orchids, jade trees, lantanas, monstera deliciosa, and even more!
Costa Rica has 5,300,000 inhabitants of which approximately 1,000,000 are foreigners. The national flower is the Guaria Morada, a type of purple epiphyte orchid. It represents the natural beauty of Costa Rica, and it brings fortune and good luck.
Costa Rica is the country with the highest biodiversity per square kilometer in the world—home to more than 500,000 species, which represents 6% of the planet’s biodiversity! It’s estimated that in Costa Rica there are 1.8 species per square kilometer. The country’s natural wealth is due to its geographical location, its two coasts and its mountain system, which provide numerous and varied microclimates.
There are all sorts of animals and fish like toucans, sloths, green turtles, jaguars, capuchin monkeys, iguanas, ocelots, pizotes, pumas, and colorful and vibrant frogs. There are five national animals in Costa Rica. They are: yigüirro, white-tailed deer, Caribbean manatee, morpho butterfly and the sloth.
Costa Rica has 32 national parks! Some of the parks are Islands, like Isla del Coco or Isla San Lucas, and some of the parks are volcanos and mountains like Rincon de la Vieja, Volcán Turrialba, Chirripó, Volcán Poás and Volcán Irazú.
Each park is beautiful and has unique animals all over the place! It’s an amazing experience, seeing all those majestic, gorgeous and colorful flowers, and those big green trees that work as a home for the diverse types of animals.
Another incredible thing about Costa Rica is the food! It has a fresh and amazing taste that anyone would fall in love with, with a diversity of ingredients. Some delicious dishes are, casado, gallo pinto, rice and beans, olla de carne, chifrijo, tamales, rosquillas, chicharrón, ceviche, arroz con pollo, tortillas palmeadas, chorreadas, and arroz con leche. In the Costa Rican cusine, they use a lot of beans, meat, rice, and tubers.
The currency is the colon, and about 505 colons is a dollar. Each bill has a beautiful and unique design representing an ecosystem and an animal that symbolizes the country’s natural wealth. Costa Rica has seven provinces, and San José is the capital. San José is the province that is the most populous, with 1,633,282 people! That’s a lot of people for a small province, having only 44.62 square km! The biggest province of Costa Rica is Puntarenas—it is 11,266 square km.
There are a lot of things to do in Costa Rica like visiting museums or hiking in the mountains. Another fun activity is going to the beaches. You can do a lot of things on the beach like kayaking, snorkeling and surfing!