Location: Central America, South of Nicaragua and North of Panama (9 56 N, 84 05 W)
Time Zone: UTC-6, same as Mountain Standard Time (MST)
Area: 51,100 sq km or 19,730 sq km, about the size of West Virginia
Population: 4,133,884 (estimated as of July 2007)
Capital: City of San Jose in the province of San Jose
Government: Democratic republic
President: Oscar Arias Sanchez, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for fostering peace talks that eventually ended the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
National Language: Spanish, but many people also speak English as well. Many people on the Caribbean coast speak a form of French called Creole
Currency: Colon, but the US dollar is widely accepted.
Religion: Roman Catholic (76%), Evangelical (14%), Jehovah's Witnesses (1%), other Protestant (1%), other (5%), none (3%)
Literacy Rate: 96%
Seasons: Green (rainy) season is May - November. Dry season is December - April
GDP: $50.89 billion, per capita $12,500
Unemployment: 6.6%
Agriculture: Coffee, pineapples, bananas, sugar, corn, rice, beans, potatoes, beef, timber
Labor force: 1.87 million. Agriculture (20%), industry (22%), services (58%) (1999 est.)
Industries: Microprocessors, food processing, textiles & clothing, construction materials, fertilizer, plastic products
Major trading partners: US, Netherlands, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Brazil. Costa Rica is currently working on growing trade with China.
Costa Rica is present in these lists:
Richest countries in Central America
Coffee producing countries
Countries with the lowest death rates
Spanish speaking countries
Catholic countries
Countries with the most women in parliament
Countries with the most airports
Tiffany Wilson is a real estate investor and an International Real Estate Consultant for Compass Properties, with offices in US and Costa Rica locations. She is passionate about Costa Rica and loves telling people all about it! She can be reached at twilson@compasscostarica.net. Check out Compass Properties website at www.dreamingofcostarica.com for more information on Costa Rica real estate opportunities.
Copyright 2007 Tiffany D. Wilson. All rights reserved.
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