Of all the Central American countries, Costa Rica is generally regarded as having the most stable and most democratic government. Its constitution of 1949 provides for a unicameral legislature, a fair judicial system, and an independent electoral body. Moreover, the constitution abolished the country's army, gave women the right to vote, and provided other social, economic, and educational guarantees for all of its citizens. Throughout the 1970s and '80s Costa Rica managed to stay relatively peaceful compared with its war-torn neighbours. It has one of the highest literacy rates (more than nine-tenths) in the Western Hemisphere and a solid educational system from the primary grades through the university level. Several renowned universities and an active network of bookstores and publishing houses tend to make San José the nucleus of intellectual life in Central America. Because of the country's peaceful reputation and its commitment to human rights, several nongovernmental organizations and pro-democracy foundations have their headquarters in San José. Costa Rica is also known for its strong commitment to the environment and for protecting its numerous national parks. These factors, along with an established ecotourism industry, have attracted foreign investment, which shifted the country's once agriculture-based economy to one dominated by services and technology by the late 20th century.

Ticos, as the people of Costa Rica are called, use the phrase pura vida (“pure life”) in their everyday speech, as a greeting or to show appreciation for something. Ticos are generally proud of their political freedoms and their relatively stable economy.

Costa Rica's well-populated heartland, formed in and around the upland basin known as the Valle Central or Meseta Central, is devoted to the cultivation of coffee, one of the country's most important exports. In the region's outlying reaches, bananas—the principal export—are grown. Pineapples have become a significant export, surpassing coffee as the number two export by the late 20th century.

Two mountain chains together run almost the entire length of Costa Rica. These are, in the north, the Cordillera Volcánica, noted for its volcanic activity, as the name implies, and, in the south, the Cordillera de Talamanca (Talamanca, Cordillera de). The Cordillera Volcánica may be divided into three ranges, from northwest to southeast: the Cordillera de Guanacaste (Guanacaste, Cordillera de), the Cordillera de Tilarán, and the Cordillera Central. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983, the Cordillera de Talamanca is a massive granite batholith, quite different geologically from the volcanically active northern ranges. Costa Rica's highest point, Mount Chirripó (12,530 feet 【3,819 metres】), is in the Talamanca system. Two of the highest peaks in the Cordillera Volcánica, Irazú (Irazú Volcano) (11,260 feet 【3,432 metres】) and Poás (8,871 feet 【2,704 metres】), have paved roads reaching to the rims of their active craters. These volcanoes, overlooking the Valle Central, pose a serious natural hazard, as do earthquakes for most of the country. Arenal Volcano (5,358 feet 【1,633 metres】), about 56 miles (90 km) northwest of San José, is the country's most active volcano, continuously spewing lava and breccia. Its last major eruption, in 1968, destroyed two villages.

The Valle Central is separated into two parts by the continental divide. The eastern part is drained by the Reventazón River to the Caribbean, and the western sector forms part of the basin of the Grande de Tárcoles River, which flows into the Pacific. Another large structural valley, the Valle del General, lies at the base of the Cordillera de Talamanca in the southern part of the country. To the north and east of the mountainous central spine lie the Caribbean lowlands, constituting about one-fifth of the country and reaching less than 400 feet (120 metres) in elevation. The Pacific lowlands, which contain several small valleys and plains, include only about one-tenth of Costa Rica's territory.

Thermal convection and onshore breezes bring abundant rains to the Pacific coast in the wet season, generally May to October in the north and April to December in the south. Northeasterly trade winds on the Caribbean provide ample year-round precipitation for the country's east coast, with the heaviest amounts occurring in the Barra del Colorado region. The higher mountain ranges have warm temperate climates, and the Pacific slopes have alternating wet and dry seasons.

Situated in the Valle Central at an elevation of 3,800 feet (1,160 metres), San José enjoys moderate temperatures and ample rainfall. Average monthly rainfall there ranges from well under 1 inch (25 mm) in February to more than 12 inches (300 mm) in September, with a yearly average of more than 70 inches (1,800 mm). Temperatures vary with elevation. San José has a mean temperature of 69 °F (21 °C), while means of 59 °F (15 °C) and 80 °F (27 °C) have been reported at stations located at 7,665 feet (2,340 metres) and 682 feet (210 metres), respectively.

Nearly four-fifths of Costa Rica's population is of European descent; as a result, Costa Rica has the largest percentage of people of Spanish descent in Central America. The Valle Central, with more than half the country's population, is the most predominantly Spanish region in both its manner of living and its ancestry. The next largest group consists of mestizos (people of mixed European and Indian ancestry), who constitute close to one-fifth of the country's inhabitants.

The roughly one-tenth of the country's inhabitants who live in Guanacaste provincia (province) are a blend of the descendants of colonial Spanish, Indian, and African peoples; the Spanish they speak is more like that of Nicaragua than that of the Valle Central.

People of African ancestry, who comprise an even smaller percentage of the total population, live mostly in the Caribbean lowland of Limón province. The descendants of workers brought from the West Indies (mainly from Jamaica) in the 19th century to build the Atlantic Railroad and work on banana plantations, they were the targets of racism, and for many years residence laws restricted them to the Caribbean coast. Moreover, in the late 1930s, when Panama disease hit the banana crop on the Atlantic coast and operations shifted to the Pacific coast, forcing many of Limón's inhabitants to seek work elsewhere, some Costa Ricans lobbied for laws barring the employment of blacks. Costa Rica's president signed a law in 1935 prohibiting banana plantation owners on the Pacific coast to employ “coloured” people, claiming that their relocation would upset the racial balance of the country. It was not until 1949 that the government abolished what was in effect Costa Rica's version of apartheid and allowed black residents of Limón to travel, enter the Valle Central region, and become citizens. Discrimination is still present in Costa Rica (though less obvious than before); many among the country's Spanish-descended majority consider blacks inferior owing to economic, cultural, and perceived “racial” differences. Because of these circumstances, the black community remains isolated from the national culture and faces many economic and social barriers.

There is a small Chinese population, many of whom are also the descendants of imported labourers. Although it has assimilated into mainstream culture, the Chinese community has its own social clubs. Many Costa Ricans of Chinese descent own businesses in the retail and hospitality industries.

Less than 1 percent of Costa Rica's population today is Indian (Central American and northern Andean Indian). Although estimates indicate that about 400,000 Indians lived in what is now Costa Rica before the Spanish conquest, that number was drastically reduced by the conquest itself, disease, and slave-raiding expeditions. The Bribrí and Cabécar reside in the Cordillera de Talamanca, and the Boruca (Brunca) and Térraba live in the hills around the Valle del General. A small number of Guatuso reside on the northern plains in Alajuela province. Most of Costa Rica's Indians are rapidly becoming assimilated, but those on the Caribbean side in the southern Talamanca region maintain their separate ways, including their animistic religions. Although Costa Rica's Indian groups are legally assigned to protected reserves, the land is infertile and most survive through subsistence agriculture. They are among the country's poorest people.

Spanish in Costa Rica is spoken with a distinctive national accent and employs peculiar usages. Costa Ricans replace the diminutive ending -tito with -tico (hence their nickname), a practice known elsewhere but uncommon in Central America. Descendants of Africans in Limón province speak both Spanish and Limonese Creole, which resembles Jamaican English. The principal Indian languages spoken in Costa Rica are part of the Chibchan (Chibchan languages) language family and include Bribrí, Cabécar, Maléku Jaíka, Boruca, and Térraba.

Slightly less than nine-tenths of Costa Ricans are Roman Catholics. Roman Catholicism is the official religion, and it is supported with a small part of the national budget; however, the constitution of 1949 provides for freedom of religion. Most of the remaining population is Protestant, the majority of whom live in Limón province. A transplanted community of Quakers (Quaker) from the U.S. state of Alabama moved to Costa Rica in the 1950s and founded the town of Monteverde. They were essential in the creation of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve. A small Jewish community resides mostly in or near San José. An extremely small group of Mennonites lives in the Sarapiqui area, at the base of the Cordillera Volcánica.

Since the beginnings of European colonization, the Valle Central has been the heartland of Costa Rica. In the 19th century, settlement slowly expanded from the core areas around Cartago and San José into the western parts of the valley. This expansion was based on coffee production from small family farms. Such farms still prevail but had become less numerous by the second half of the 19th century, when Costa Rica started to export coffee beans. Only large farms had the capacity and labour to prepare and package the coffee for shipment. Small properties were bought and integrated into larger landholdings. Nevertheless, more than half of Costa Rica's coffee farms are 10 acres (4 hectares) or less in size, a factor that contributes to the democratic heritage for which the country is famed.

During the 20th century, Costa Rica's settlement frontiers expanded outward rapidly from the Valle Central to incorporate peripheral areas, until virtually all the suitable lands in the country were settled and the spread of population effectively ended.

In the Caribbean lowlands the banana industry thrived from the 1880s until the 1920s, when Panama disease forced closure of the plantations. New disease-resistant varieties of bananas allowed reestablishment of the Caribbean plantations in the late 1950s, thus reviving the economy. The southern Pacific coastal region was opened for banana production about 1938 by the development of plantations around Parrita and Golfito. After World War II, competition from other banana-producing countries increased, causing national production to decline, and the last company-owned plantations in the Pacific region were closed or replanted with oil palms (oil palm) by 1985. Elsewhere in the south, habitation of the Valle del General increased rapidly following construction of the Inter-American Highway (Pan-American Highway) during World War II and into the 1950s.

The San Carlos Plain, part of the northern lowlands, was settled mainly after 1945, when roads were built that connected it with the Valle Central. In the 1970s and '80s more new roads brought additional expansion of agriculture and cattle grazing to this fertile area.

The northwestern province of Guanacaste—where many people work on large cattle ranches, or haciendas, while also maintaining small agricultural plots of their own—was once a part of Nicaragua and still retains a variety of Nicaraguan cultural influences. In many ways, this is the least traditionally Costa Rican part of the country.

In the mid-20th century, Costa Rica's population growth rate was among the highest in the world. As general prosperity and urbanization increased, however, the population growth rate decreased despite a drop in both the general and the infant mortality rates. This decrease in the population growth rate was largely attributable to the fact that by the late 20th century, middle-class Costa Rican families were having fewer children than previous generations. Life expectancy in Costa Rica is substantially longer than in most other Central American countries and is more comparable to life expectancies in developed countries.

European immigration and customs have helped to mold Costa Rican history and influence its character. German, Italian, and British immigrants in the 19th century left an imprint on Costa Rican education, science, and culture. In the 1970s immigrants mainly came from Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. However, in the 1980s immigrants and refugees arrived from nearby countries. Economic problems and political and armed conflict in Nicaragua and other Central American countries drove thousands of refugees (mainly mestizos) into Costa Rica, altering the ethnic composition of the country. Since the 1990s there has been a constant flow into Costa Rica of Nicaraguans, more than 400,000 of whom were estimated to be living in the country in the early 2000s. Many of these immigrants face barriers in housing, education, and health care and live in rundown neighbourhoods. During Nicaragua's dictatorship and civil war in the 1980s, the Costa Rican government set up refugee camps to aid its neighbours. Furthermore, after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Costa Rica granted asylum to many Nicaraguan refugees. In the early 2000s, however, the government enforced harsher measures to control illegal immigration, including tighter border controls and fines for businesses that employed undocumented workers. It is estimated that one-tenth of the Nicaraguans in Costa Rica are illegal aliens. Nationwide polls show that many Costa Ricans possess negative stereotypes of Nicaraguans. Costa Rica has also become a mecca for retirees from the United States, tens of thousands of whom now live there.

Costa Rica is neither rich, as its name (“Rich Coast”) implies, nor as poor as many of its neighbours. The country's wealth is better distributed among all social classes than elsewhere in Central America. During the 1980s the Costa Rican standard of living declined somewhat as a result of economic stagnation and inflation, but by the 1990s and into the 21st century the country was again vying with Panama and Belize for Central America's highest per capita gross national product (GNP).

The government controls key utilities, including electricity, water, fixed-line telephone, and port and rail facilities, and the entire population is eligible for free medical care, but private enterprise is still strong and influential in policy making. Continuous efforts to diversify the economy have succeeded in reducing the traditional dependence on agricultural exports, particularly coffee, bananas, and beef. Despite stringent efforts to reduce spending, the Costa Rican government operates at a deficit, a condition that has fed the country's already large international debt. The economy rebounded after the economic stagnation of the 1980s; by the beginning of the 21st century, the rate of annual GNP growth was above the Central American average and was double the world average, while the country's chronic inflation had been brought largely under control. Per capita national debt, however, is among the largest in Central America.

Extensive deforestation went unchecked in the last few decades of the 20th century, when much of Costa Rica's timber reserves were cleared to make way for pasture or cropland. But by the end of the century the government had taken measures to limit use of trees for wood and fuel, had joined the private sector in further managing forest harvesting, and was compensating owners of woodlands for the environmental benefits of maintaining their forests. The best remaining stands of tropical hardwoods are in protected parks and forest reserves.

Costa Rica's fishing industry, concentrated mostly on the Pacific coast and focusing primarily on tuna and shrimp, supplies both the domestic market and exports. Tilapia fish farming, which grew significantly in the 1990s, has made Costa Rica the principal supplier of tilapia to the United States.

Costa Rica's agricultural land and climate are its most important natural resources. The country has few mineral resources. The most important are the yet-unexploited bauxite deposits in the General and Coto Brus valleys and copper in the Cordillera de Talamanca. There is manganese on and near the Nicoya Peninsula, gold on the Osa Peninsula and parts of the Pacific slopes, and magnetite on scattered beaches, particularly on the southern Caribbean coastline. Geologic conditions are promising for petroleum in the southern Caribbean coast, but exploration has proved disappointing. For many years a number of hydroelectric (hydroelectric power) plants have supplied domestic needs and provided a surplus for export. In fact, by the early 21st century about four-fifths of the country's electricity was produced from these plants, which do not emit greenhouse gases. The Angostura hydroelectric plant in central Costa Rica, which began operations in 2000, is the country's largest.

Manufacturing contributes about one-fifth of Costa Rica's GNP and employs approximately one-sixth of the economically active population. Most industry is concentrated in the Valle Central, but a few plants operate in Puntarenas and Limón. Food and beverage processing, soap, paper, pharmaceuticals, and furniture making are domestically important. The main items manufactured for export are machinery, food products, textiles, and chemical and electronic products.

By the late 1990s Costa Rica had started to shift from an agriculture- and textile-based economy to a high-tech industrial one, though the textile industry rebounded in the late 20th century, largely owing to the development of plants making clothing from imported cloth for export to the United States. The U.S.-based Intel Corporation opened a large microprocessor semiconductor assembly and testing facility in Costa Rica in 1997, providing thousands of jobs. Since then, other large foreign technology and pharmaceutical companies have followed, attracted by the country's location, political stability, high number of college graduates, and tax incentives.

Costa Rica has both state-owned and private banks, and a national federation of savings and loan cooperatives supervises an extensive network of local agencies. Its national currency is the colón. There is a small national stock exchange. Insurance is a state monopoly controlled by the National Insurance Institute. Costa Rica is generally favourable toward foreign investment, and foreign-owned companies control a large segment of both agricultural and industrial production. Permitted in Costa Rican free trade zones, foreign direct investment (FDI) now generates about one-third of the country's exports, compared with only one-tenth in the 1990s.

Since the late 1980s Costa Rica's exports have diversified beyond the traditional staples of coffee and bananas. With the arrival of Intel and other technology companies, computer microchips became the country's top export in the early 21st century. Coffee, bananas, and pineapples are still shipped in great quantities to the United States and western and central Europe. Other exports of importance include textiles, fish and shrimp, sugar, and cut flowers. Beef, formerly the third largest export, has declined in importance.

More than two-fifths of exports go to the United States; other countries receiving Costa Rican exports include China, The Netherlands, Germany, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Costa Rica maintains a strong trade relationship with China, with which it officially established diplomatic relations in 2007 (after breaking ties with Taiwan).

Costa Rica imports staples such as corn (maize) and beans (which it could produce but does not) from its neighbours, along with products such as wheat (from the United States), for which the Costa Rican climate is not suitable. Nonfood imports include insecticides and other chemicals, machinery, and crude oil and petroleum products. More than two-fifths of imports come from the United States; most of the rest originate in Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela. In 2007 Costa Rica approved the implementation of the Central America–Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA–DR) with the United States by a slim margin in a public referendum.

Though the break between the wealthy and manual workers is less distinct in Costa Rica than in other Central American countries, there remains a large number of agricultural and industrial labourers who earn very low wages. The poorest areas are the province of Limón, the Cordillera de Talamanca, the northern lowlands, and isolated parts of the Pacific coast. The San José metropolitan area stands out as the area of greatest affluence. About one-third of the documented workforce is made up of women. Nicaraguan immigrants make up about one-tenth of manual labourers (mainly in the agriculture and construction sectors) in Costa Rica. Their presence has helped keep production costs low for agricultural exports.

Costa Rica has municipal, sales, transfer, and income taxes. Corporations are also taxed.

The hub of Costa Rican transportation is in the Valle Central. A highway extends west from San José to beyond San Ramón. Additional highways, completed in the 1980s and '90s, have greatly reduced distance and travel time between San José and the Caribbean lowlands. Elsewhere in the Valle Central are narrow, often tortuous, paved routes, with few interconnections, that reach the many valley and mountain communities in the immediate area. The Northern Pacific Railroad, which connected San José to the Caribbean coast, suffered severe damage from floods and was abandoned in 1991. The electric rail line from San José to Puntarenas discontinued long-distance service at about the same time but continues to operate locally. The Inter-American Highway connects Costa Rica with Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south.

Limón and Puntarenas have port facilities constructed at nearby Moín and Caldera, respectively. These facilities are equipped to handle containerized cargo and, in the case of Moín, petroleum shipments. The southern Pacific port of Golfito, once an important banana-shipping centre, handles little trade since the decline of banana production there. Limón is the busiest of the three ports.

Juan Santamaría Airport, about 15 miles (24 km) west of San José, is Costa Rica's main international airport. There is also an international airport in Liberia, a gateway to many Pacific coast beach resorts. Lineas Aereas Costarricenses (LACSA), the Costa Rican national airline, maintains regular service to Central American and Caribbean locations as well as to the United States. Elsewhere in the country are smaller airports, some with paved and some with gravel strips, that are used by small planes and offer local service.

Telecommunication services have been provided through the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad; ICE), a state-owned monopoly since 1949. In 2008 Congress approved a bill to end the ICE's monopoly and to open the cellular phone and Internet service markets to competition, reforms that were required for compliance with the terms of CAFTA–DR. Attempts to privatize the industry had been deterred by widespread strikes and protests beginning in 1999. Costa Rica has some of the highest rates of Internet and cellular phone usage in Central America. Because of the excess demand for cellular phones, paging services have become popular, and there are several in the country. The broadcasting sector also has been privatized.

Since the adoption of the constitution of 1949, Costa Rica has given an unusual degree of power to autonomous agencies, including state-financed universities and regional development institutes such as the National Insurance Institute, the Social Security Institute, and the Costa Rica Tourist Institute. These agencies provide additional opportunity for participation in government, but because of powers independent of the central administration they have made central planning more challenging.

The country's seven provinces are administered by governors appointed by the president. The provinces represent judicial and electoral jurisdictions; most government agencies with their own administrative branches may not account for provincial boundaries. Each province is divided into cantones (cantons), and each canton is divided into distritos (districts). Councilmen for the cantons are elected locally, but budgets for all political units are approved by the national government, which controls nearly all the funds available to local governments.

In the Costa Rican system of justice, cases may be decided by a single judge or by a panel of judges; the jury system is not used, but the courts are generally noted for their fairness. Capital punishment is banned, and sentences to the penitentiary must be for a stated number of years. The highest court is the Supreme Court of Justice. Magistrates of the Supreme Court are chosen by the assembly for eight-year terms and automatically continue for a second eight-year term unless removed by a two-thirds vote. An independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which has extraordinary powers during elections, oversees the election process.

All citizens over age 18 are obliged to register to vote and to participate in elections. Voter turnout has traditionally been high, averaging about four-fifths of eligible voters from the 1960s through 1994, before falling thereafter. Costa Rica has a stable democratic government. The fairness of national elections has been indicated by the fact that almost every four-year period since the mid-20th century has seen a change in the party winning the presidency. Two parties have traditionally dominated: the National Liberation Party (Partido de Liberación Nacional; PLN), which since 1949 has controlled the National Assembly more often than not, and the Social Christian Unity Party (Partido Unidad Social Cristiana; PUSC). The former, founded by the moderate socialist José Figueres Ferrer (Ferrer, José) in 1948, was largely responsible for establishing the health, education, and welfare reforms for which Costa Rica is noted. The PUSC, a four-party coalition formed in 1977, is more conservative and business-oriented than the PLN. In 2000 the Citizen Action Party (Partido Acción Ciudadana; PAC) was founded as an alternative.

Costa Rica has no army and promotes demilitarization elsewhere as a part of its foreign policy. It maintains a nonconscripted civil guard that has police duties. There also are district police.

Costa Rica has greatly reduced the incidence of diseases associated with tropical climates. Malaria has been virtually eliminated except in the border areas with Nicaragua; waterborne diseases are rare; and mortality rates are low. The incidence of cancer and heart disease has risen, however. Costa Rica's Social Security Institute, founded in the 1940s, is often considered a model for other Latin American countries.

A number of agencies promoting human rights have established headquarters in San José, including the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. The Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, created in 1988 by Oscar Arias Sánchez (Arias Sánchez, Oscar) following his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, lobbies for gender equity and equal opportunity and peace and security and includes a higher education and research division.

The constitution provides for free and compulsory education. The central government oversees school attendance, curricula, and other educational matters. About one-fourth of the country's budget is allocated to education, and more than nine-tenths of the population is literate. School attendance is relatively high, with more than nine-tenths of children age 6 to 11 enrolled in primary schools and more than three-fifths of students age 12 to 16 enrolled in secondary schools.

The University of Costa Rica (1941) has a well-planned, functional main campus in San Pedro, a suburb of San José, as well as a number of branches in outlying cities; the National University has a smaller campus in Heredia; and the “open” university, Universidad Estatal a Distancia (1977), offers courses by television from offices in San José. The Autonomous University of Central America (1976) is also located in San José, as are several private institutions of higher education. Through the initiative of Pres. Rodrigo Carazo Odio (Carazo Odio, Rodrigo) (1978–82), Costa Rica became the home of the University for Peace in 1980. The Technological Institute of Costa Rica (Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica 【ITCR】; founded in 1971 in Cartago) provides engineering and other technical training. Scores of foreign universities maintain exchange programs with Costa Rica's universities.

Most Costa Rican diversions are cosmopolitan rather than nationalistic in nature. Ticos attend films with great frequency, enjoying international cinema. They listen to an extraordinary variety of music, especially from the many radio stations in the country. Cable television enables them to keep up with global events. Residents of the Valle Central attend the National Theatre, where the music played and the drama performed may come from any part of the world. Extended family and other personal connections through school, business, political, or religious associations are very important to ticos.

As a predominantly Roman Catholic country, Costa Rica observes many holy days and feasts. Among the most important are Semana Santa, or Holy Week, when most of the country's towns suspend business for several days of ceremonies and parades, and the Day of the Virgin of Los Angeles (August 2), which honours Costa Rica's patron saint and is marked by fireworks and feasting. On a secular level, Juan Santamaría Day (April 11) celebrates the Costa Rican patriot who organized a volunteer army to turn back the invading American adventurer William Walker (Walker, William) in 1856. The Guanacaste region, in Costa Rica's northwest, is known for raising cattle, and in late July several of its towns hold fairs that feature bullfighting, dancing, equestrian competitions, and cavalcades. Celebrations in San José draw crowds to its unique collection of plazas—notably the Democracy, Culture, Free Elections, and Social Guarantees plazas.

Costa Ricans take a strong interest in their pre-Columbian art, which includes large stone statues from the Pacific northwest of the country, exquisitely carved stone spheres (probably cemetery markers) from the Pacific southwest region, and fine figurines of gold and jade. The fine arts have seldom flourished in Costa Rica, but they have received some impetus from government support, particularly with the creation in 1970 of the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports. Painting, sculpture, and music all showed considerable development in the latter part of the 20th century. Particular pride was taken in the growth of the National Symphony Orchestra since 1971, with the ensemble playing large halls and also taking music to the countryside. Costa Ricans have been marginally active in the field of literature. Roberto Brenes Mesén and Ricardo Fernández Guardia were widely known in the early 20th century as independent thinkers in the fields of education and history, respectively. Fabián Dobles and Carlos Luis Fallas have attracted international attention as writers of novels with social protest themes. Carmen Naranjo is one of several noted female writers. Among the folk arts, Costa Rica is most famous for its highly decorated oxcarts and wood carvings.

As elsewhere in Central America, football (football (soccer)) (soccer) is the Costa Rican national pastime, and there are dozens of local and provincial teams. The sport was introduced to the country by English settlers in the early 20th century, and succeeding generations have refined an aggressive style of play that has repeatedly earned Costa Rica's national team the Central American Soccer Union (Unión Centroamericana de Futbol; UNCAF) Nations Cup as the champions of Central America. Although its Olympic committee was not founded until 1953, Costa Rica participated in the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin, and Costa Rican athletes have attended every Summer Games since 1956, finding their greatest success in football. But it was swimmer Claudia Poll Ahrens who won the country's first gold medal, in the 200-metre freestyle event at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.

Costa Rica has developed the largest national park system, relative to its size, of any Latin American country. These parks include a sweeping range of tropical ecosystems, such as tropical rainforest (Corcovado National Park; Manuel Antonio National Park), cloud forest (Monteverde), dry forest, and elfin forest. Other parks include active volcanoes, turtle nesting sites (Tortuguero National Park, Playa Grande, and Ostional National Wildlife Refuge), and coral reefs (Cahuita National Park). International tourists are attracted by these parks, some of which are noted worldwide for their vegetation and wildlife. The country's national beaches are a major attraction for Costa Ricans as well, who flock to them on weekends and major holidays. Popular beaches include Manuel Antonio, Conchal, Flamingo, Tamarindo, and Grande.

Although it features picturesque uncrowded beaches on both its Caribbean and Pacific coasts, Costa Rica was somewhat late in developing an ocean sports industry. That changed when Costa Rica's Pacific beaches were prominently featured in the 1994 American film The Endless Summer 2. Surfers from around the world began to descend on such magnificent surfing spots as El Potrero, Roca Bruja, Pico Pequeño, Callejones, Mal País, and Puerto Viejo. The last, lying alongside a tall coral reef, offers especially challenging surfing. Others flock to the same beaches for their outstanding diving sites and clear, warm waters. Sportfishing on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is popular with tourists.

Numerous publishing houses operate in the country, issuing both fiction and nonfiction on a wide range of topics. The government-operated Editorial Costa Rica and publishing outlets of major universities are the most prolific of the publishing houses. Both the number and variety of publications available in Costa Rican bookstores surpass those of any other Central American country and some South American countries as well. La Nación (“The Nation”), an independent but conservative daily, is the most widely read of Costa Rica's newspapers. It is balanced by La Républica (“The Republic”) and La Prensa Libre (“The Free Press”), independents that lean more toward reform ideas. The Tico Times, an English-language newspaper, has established a reputation for its investigative reporting. There are several television stations, one of which is government-owned.

In 1502 Christopher Columbus (Columbus, Christopher)'s fourth Atlantic voyage brought him to the shores of Costa Rica, where he remained for 18 days refitting his ships. Relations with the native people became friendly enough that they brought him a number of items of gold, possibly prompting Columbus to name the land “Rich Coast,” although there is some dispute over the origin of the name. Other more promising regions forced Spain to neglect the area, however, and the first significant settlement in what is now Costa Rica did not take place until much later. In 1564 the Spanish crown established the village of Cartago in the Valle Central, or Meseta Central, as the first permanent settlement.

Theoretically under the political jurisdiction of the captain general of Guatemala and the spiritual guidance of the bishop of León in Nicaragua, Costa Rica was largely ignored by both administrations. The absence of precious metals meant the collection of few taxes from the ticos, as Costa Ricans are called; consequently Spain provided little help in developing the infrastructure of the province. Compared with other colonies, Costa Rica lacked the large labour force so essential in the Spanish scheme of conquest. The Indian population drastically declined during and immediately following conquest; any survivors resisted capture by disappearing into the forests rather than succumbing to the encomienda, Spain's usual system of forced labour. Lacking products for a great overseas market, the Costa Ricans eked out a subsistence economy based on cacao (the source of cocoa beans) and tobacco. Hence, most people were small landowners with a close personal interest in local affairs. Historians often give credit to these developments for the growth of the democratic ideals that have become associated with Costa Rica. It should be noted, however, that some persons who became rich established a small finca- (estate-) based oligarchy, which provided political leadership well into the 20th century.

When Mexico declared its independence from Spain in 1821, Costa Rica, with other parts of Central America, joined the short-lived Mexican Empire. In 1823 Costa Rica helped create the United Provinces of Central America but, disenchanted with the strife in the other four states of the federation, severed its ties in 1838. A pattern of isolationism similar to that of the colonial period was reinforced. Indeed, Costa Ricans invariably showed little interest in the many attempts to revive the federation throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century, until their country joined the Central American Common Market in 1962.

Costa Rican leaders soon realized the potential for coffee (coffee production) cultivation and strove to promote coffee planting. From the 1840s a constant stream of oxcarts carried coffee from the Valle Central to Pacific ports and ships bound for Europe. This trade triggered British investment. Unlike sugar and indigo planters, coffee farmers with even small acreage could derive an adequate if simple existence, and Costa Ricans achieved a competitive advantage over coffee farmers in other Latin American countries.

Costa Rica's policy of isolationism did not completely save it from foreign troubles. In 1825 the province of Guanacaste seceded from Nicaragua and joined Costa Rica, creating an issue that was contended until the boundary treaty of 1896. Political refugees from other Central American countries attempted, and occasionally succeeded, in involving Costa Rica in regional conflicts. Another danger developed when William Walker (Walker, William) and his band of filibusters took over Nicaragua in 1856, threatening all of Central America. Costa Rican troops participated in the Central American coalition force that drove Walker out of the region.

Material progress came to Costa Rica during the era of Gen. Tomás Guardia, who dominated the country from 1870 until 1882. His government curtailed liberty and added to the debt, but it also brought increases in coffee and sugar exports as well as widespread construction of schools. A new constitution, adopted in 1871, remained in effect, except for a brief interlude (1917–19), until 1949. The emphasis on agricultural exports strained transportation, and, with mainly British funds, Costa Rica sought to link the Valle Central with the seaports by railway. The chief promoter was an American, Minor C. Keith, who made a fortune with the opening of his rail line between Cartago and Limón. With vast land grants, Keith then entered the banana business. By the late 19th century, bananas were beginning to rival coffee as the chief source of Costa Rican foreign exchange, especially after Keith's investments were merged with others to form the United Fruit Company in 1899.

The last decades of the 19th century were also marked by a gradual decline in Roman Catholic Church activity in secular affairs. The Jesuits were expelled for a few years, cemeteries were secularized, and public education was expanded. In 1886 free public education became compulsory; public schools, a museum, and a national library were founded. Though the government continued to support the church, the constitution of 1871 provided for religious toleration. Strengthening the tradition of democracy for which Costa Rica was to become famed throughout Latin America was the victory in 1889 of Pres. José Joaquín Rodríguez in what is considered the first entirely free and honest election in all of Central America.

In the early 20th century Costa Rica and four other Central American republics established the Central American Court of Justice, the first international court with wide juridical powers. The headquarters were established in Cartago, but, when the building was destroyed in the 1910 earthquake, the headquarters were moved to San José. One of the court's landmark cases involved the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty (Bryan–Chamorro Treaty) of 1916, which gave the United States permission to use the San Juan River (the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica) as part of an interoceanic canal route. Costa Rica protested that Nicaragua was violating preexisting treaty rights and that opening a route would threaten Costa Rican security. The claim was brought before the court, which ruled in Costa's Rica's favour; however, Nicaragua refused to accept the ruling and withdrew from the court. Because of Nicaragua's withdrawal and an overall ineffective judicial procedure, the court dissolved in 1918 after 10 years in existence. However, the building in San José, which had been constructed with help from a donation by U.S. philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (Carnegie, Andrew), became the home of Costa Rica's Ministry of Foreign Relations.

Costa Rica's boundary with Panama (originally with Colombia, before Panamanian independence) was also in dispute. Arbitration awards by France and the United States in 1900 and 1914, respectively, had been generally favourable to Costa Rica but were rejected by Panama. In 1921 Costa Rica attempted forcible occupation of this area (on the Pacific coast) but was diverted by the intervention of the United States. Panama then evacuated the region, but relations between the two small states were not reestablished until 1928. In 1941 the governments finally reached an accord over the boundary.

Meanwhile, Costa Rica suffered an interruption in its march toward democratic, civilian-controlled government. When the country held an election under direct suffrage for the first time, in 1913, no candidate won a majority, and the Legislative Assembly chose Alfredo González Flores as president. Disgruntled over tax reforms proposed by González, Gen. Federico Tinoco Granados in 1917 led one of the country's few coups. Tinoco's despotic behaviour soon cost him his popularity. His administration was also impeded by the refusal of the U.S. government to recognize his regime, and revolts and the threat of U.S. intervention caused him to resign in 1919.

This experiment in dictatorship was not repeated, and Costa Rica continued its tradition of democratic elections and orderly government. A literacy test for voters was adopted in 1920 and the secret ballot in 1925. Costa Rica's most serious political crisis since 1917 came in 1948. Former president Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia (1940–44) formed an unusual political coalition consisting of members of the communist Popular Vanguard Party and the Catholic Church to bring about significant improvement in workers' conditions and social security. Some thought the coalition went too far when it tried to prevent the seating of the president-elect, Otilio Ulate, a Social Democrat. José Figueres Ferrer (Figueres Ferrer, José), an outspoken landowner who favoured a greater role for state enterprise, organized local and foreign militia and trained them at his farm. His army, which evolved into the National Liberation Party (Partido Liberación Nacional; PLN), launched a successful rebellion against the government and sparked a brief civil war in which about 2,000 civilians were killed. The war ended after a compromise was reached under which Figueres promised to restore order, to preserve some of Calderón's reforms, and to then turn over the presidency to Ulate. Figueres led the country for 18 months. A new constitution, promulgated in 1949 by Figueres's regime, prohibited the establishment or maintenance of an army, established women's suffrage, strengthened the electoral tribunal, abolished institutionalized racism, nationalized the banking system, and gave great powers to state corporations, known as autonomous agencies. Then, as promised, the junta turned the government over to Ulate. Figueres was elected twice in his own right, in 1953 and again in 1970, establishing his PLN as the dominant group in the Legislative Assembly.

In 1974 Daniel Oduber succeeded Figueres as president. Although both belonged to the PLN, Oduber and his predecessor soon fell out over Figueres's ties to the U.S. financier Robert Vesco (Vesco, Robert Lee), who had found refuge in Costa Rica from an indictment on conspiracy charges in New York City. Vesco left Costa Rica in 1978, but the splintering of the PLN made possible the presidential victory of Rodrigo Carazo Odio (Carazo Odio, Rodrigo) of the Social Christian Unity Party (Partido Unidad Social Cristiana; PUSC) in that year. Carazo faced serious diplomatic and economic problems. When the Sandinista insurgency broke out against the Somoza (Somoza family) regime in Nicaragua, strong anti-Somoza feeling in Costa Rica resulted in Costa Rican government support of the Sandinista cause. After the Sandinistas were successful and began to drift closer to the Soviet bloc and to support drastic change in Central America, public opinion in Costa Rica shifted against the new Nicaraguan regime. Diplomatic relations deteriorated. Thousands of Nicaraguans and other Central American refugees escaping civil war or civil rights abuses fled to Costa Rica and strained the country's capacity to absorb them. Many refugees were deported for using Costa Rica as a military base.

Even more enduring were the country's economic troubles. Although Costa Rica remained politically stable, Central America's conflicts discouraged tourism. Economic growth slowed to very near zero when the price of oil became so high that almost all of the country's coffee crop income was needed to pay for foreign oil. Inflation rates fluctuated sharply, and unemployment rose. Hospital, dock, banana, and railroad workers received small pay raises after staging disruptive strikes. Many years of easy credit, excessive government spending, and unfavourable trade balances brought the country to the brink of economic ruin. Carazo and the bankers failed to reach an agreement and left the problem for the new president, Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez of the PLN, who took office in 1982. In return for extending Costa Rica's debts, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank insisted that Monge impose severe austerity measures, including devaluation of the colón, budget and tax cuts, and suspension of some subsidies.

In addition to his economic woes, Monge had to face pressure from the United States to cooperate with the anti-Sandinista counterrevolution based in Honduras, while public opinion pressed for neutrality. Monge opted to declare his country's official neutrality but secretly cooperated with the United States.

In 1986 Monge was succeeded by another member of the PLN, Oscar Arias Sánchez (Arias Sánchez, Oscar), who faced many of the same economic problems. Costa Rica continued to be beset by nearly $5 billion in foreign debt, too-rapid urbanization, inadequate housing, unemployment, and adjustments necessitated by privatization of state monopolies. More than one-third of the country's income was derived from international loans. Civil wars elsewhere in Central America continued bringing thousands of fugitives into Costa Rican exile, and illicit drug traffic imposed new forms of corruption on the land.

Aside from some easing of the debt structure, Arias could accomplish little with these matters, but he created for himself a powerful role in international affairs. A wealthy coffee grower and political scientist educated in England, Arias spent most of his term leading a regional peace movement designed to end the bitter Contra war in Nicaragua and guerrilla conflicts in El Salvador and Guatemala. Because he refused to aid the Contras, he expected and received little support from the United States, but he achieved considerable success in rallying forces in Central America in favour of ending conflict. He did more than any other person to reduce tensions and create machinery to end the bloody Central American struggles. In 1987 President Arias received the Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts.

Arias, constitutionally ineligible to run in 1990, was succeeded by Rafael Angel Calderón Fournier of the PUSC. Calderón Fournier, son of the reform president of the 1940–44 period, Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia, had lost two previous presidential campaigns. Calderón Fournier had campaigned to expand social welfare programs and to reduce income inequalities, but, faced with a large budget deficit, he instead enacted austerity measures, costing him and his party popularity. As president, he inaugurated the Plaza of Social Guarantees in honour of his father's establishment of social security. But the 1990s dictated different measures, and Calderón Fournier presided over neoliberal policies, including eliminating protectionist legislation and favouring privatization of banks and other state agencies. These steps and lower petroleum prices helped to improve the country's economic condition. Peace in Central America helped tourism, but world markets for Costa Rica's traditional agricultural products slowed the flow of foreign exchange.

In 1994 PLN candidate José María Figueres Olsen (the son of three-time president José Figueres Ferrer) won the presidency, defeating the PUSC's Miguel Angel Rodríguez Echeverría, though the PLN failed to win an outright majority in the Legislative Assembly. Figueres's policy prescriptions for Costa Rica's ailing economy—spending cuts and tax increases—alienated large segments of the public. His government was also hurt by the World Bank's refusal to grant Costa Rica money to finance its structural adjustment program. The fiscal crisis led to an accord between the PLN and PUSC that enabled the enactment of reforms. In 1996 Costa Rica's economic difficulties were compounded by Hurricane Cesar, which caused widespread damage, particularly in the southern part of the country.

While Figueres's presidential campaign indicated that he shared some of his father's faith and the PLN's traditional support of statist policies, he spent much of his time courting private enterprise. Although gross national product (GNP) in the 1996–98 period was still low, Figueres could claim credit for reducing inflation by nearly half. By reforming the public pension system and improving tax collection, the Figueres government significantly reduced the deficit as a percentage of the GNP. The Costa Rican government, long considered an example of a bloated bureacracy, was coming down to size, whether controlled by the PUSC or the PLN.

In 1998 the PUSC's Miguel Angel Rodríguez, promising to reduce poverty and improve the lives of women and young people, was elected president. With tourism booming and Costa Rica able to attract foreign investment, particularly from high-technology firms, the economy rebounded.

The 2002 presidential and legislative elections shattered the stable two-party system that the country had enjoyed for several decades. Although the PUSC retained the presidency, its nominee, Abel Pacheco de la Espriella, was forced into an unprecedented runoff, as no candidate garnered at least 40 percent of the vote in the first round. In elections to the Legislative Assembly, the Citizen Action Party (Partido Acción Ciudadana; PAC) won 14 seats, denying an overall majority to either the PUSC or the PLN.

The following year Costa Rica's Supreme Court annulled the 1969 legislative reform of the constitution that limited a president to a single four-year term, thus reverting to the 1949 constitution, which enabled a former president to seek the presidency again after having been out of office for eight years. The annulment allowed former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Arias to announce his candidacy for president in 2004. During this time, Pacheco's administration experienced a growing budget deficit and was scarred by the discovery of funds from his campaign in Panamanian banks. Also, three past presidents of his party, the PUSC, were charged with accepting bribes and placed under house arrest. Moreover, former president Rodríguez was forced to resign as secretary-general of the Organization of American States to return to Costa Rica to respond to these corruption charges.

Arias won the presidency in the 2006 elections, beating Ottón Solís Fallas of PAC by a slim margin. He proposed ending state-run monopolies in electric power, social security, and telecommunications and favoured ratifying the Central America–Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA–DR) with the United States, despite protests from trade unions and other organizations. Costa Rican citizens voted in favour of the agreement by a narrow margin in the country's first national referendum, held in 2007. In the process Costa Rica became the last Central American country to ratify the agreement. Also in 2007, President Arias officially established diplomatic relations with China in an effort to promote trade and economic cooperation, breaking off 60 years of formal ties with Taiwan.