Costa Rica

Costa Rica – Country Profile and General Information

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a sovereign nation, organized as a unitary presidential republic made up of 7 provinces. Located in Central America, it has a territory with a total area of 51,100 km².

It is bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Regarding the maritime borders, it borders with Panama, Nicaragua, Colombia and Ecuador. It has 5,137,000 inhabitants according to its latest demographic projection. Its capital, political and economic center is San José, and its official language is Spanish.

With a solid and long-lasting democracy, among the most functional in the world, and an effective capacity for social mobility that allows it to achieve high general progress in relation to the distribution and size of its economy, Costa Rica is the fiftieth country richest in the world according to data from the International Monetary Fund and one of the most stable in the Americas, obtaining generally favorable results in all development and competitiveness indices.

In addition to this, it has several cutting-edge policies for environmental protection and is a demilitarized nation of its own free will since 1948, maintaining a high level of prosperity according to the Legatum Institute and being considered the happiest society on the planet, for more than a decade, according to the New Economics Foundation.

At the same time, the country is currently facing important challenges in its development related to the terrible state and capacity for improvement in its road and transport infrastructure, a high fiscal deficit, the sustainability and effectiveness of its welfare state, the stagnation in poverty and unemployment, the upward trend in crime and inequality, and deep ecological problems related to harmful agricultural practices, poor waste management, and contamination of bodies of water.