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» Costa Rica Information
Costa Rica (literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica (Spanish: Costa Rica or República de Costa Rica, is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the south-southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Costa Rica was the first country in the world to constitutionally abolish its army.
» Costa Rica General Information
Capital: San Jose
Currency: Costa Rican colon
Official languages: Spanish
» Costa Rica History
In Pre-Columbian times the Indigenous people, in what is now known as Costa Rica, were part of the Intermediate Area located between the Mesoamerican and Andean cultural regions. This has recently been updated to include the influence of the Isthmo-Colombian area.
Costa Rica boasts a varied history. It was the point where the Mesoamerican and South American native cultures met. The northwest of the country, the Nicoya Peninsula, was the southernmost point of Nahuatl cultural influence when the Spanish invaders (conquistadores) came in the sixteenth century. The center and southern portions of the country had Chibcha influences. However, the indigenous people have influenced modern Costa Rican culture to a relatively small degree, as most of the Indians died from disease and mistreatment by the Spaniards.
Costa Rica was populated with African slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, although most Caribbean Costa Ricans of African ascent descend from Jamaican workers brought in during the nineteenth century to work in the construction of railways connecting the urban populations of the Central Plateau to the port of Limon on the Caribbean coast.
During the nineteenth century, Italian and Chinese immigrants came to the country to work on the construction of the railroad system as well, but unlike the slaves, these newcomers did so for monetary gain and skills acquirement.
