Costa Rica is a unitary presidential constitutional republic. It is known for its long-standing and stable democracy, and for its highly educated workforce, most of whom speak English. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism. Many foreign manufacturing and services companies operate in Costa Rica’s Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives.<\/p>\n Costa Rica was sparsely inhabited by indigenous peoples<\/a> before coming under Spanish rule<\/a> in the 16th century. It remained a peripheral colony of the empire until independence as part of the First Mexican Empire<\/a>, followed by membership in the United Provinces of Central America<\/a>, from which it formally declared independence in 1847. Since then, Costa Rica has remained among the most stable, prosperous, and progressive nations in Latin America. Following the brief Costa Rican Civil War<\/a>, it permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming one of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army.<\/a><\/p>\n The country has consistently performed favorably in the Human Development Index (HDI)<\/a>, placing 63rd in the world as of 2017, among the highest of any Latin American nation. It has also been cited by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as having attained much higher human development than other countries at the same income levels, with a better record on human development and inequality than the median of the region.<\/p>\n Costa Rica also has progressive environmental policies. It is the only country to meet all five UNDP criteria established to measure environmental sustainability. It was ranked 42nd in the world, and third in the Americas, in the 2016 Environmental Performance Index<\/a>, and was twice ranked the best performing country in the New Economics Foundation’s (NEF)<\/a> Happy Planet Index<\/a>, which measures environmental sustainability, and was identified by the NEF as the greenest country in the world in 2009. Costa Rica plans to become a carbon-neutral country by 2021. By 2016, 98.1% of its electricity was generated from green sources particularly hydro<\/a>, solar<\/a>, geothermal<\/a> and biomass<\/a>.<\/p>\n Historians have classified the indigenous people of Costa Rica as belonging to the Intermediate Area<\/a>, where the peripheries of the Mesoamerican<\/a> and Andean<\/a> native cultures overlapped. More recently, pre-Columbian<\/a> Costa Rica has also been described as part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area<\/a>.<\/p>\n Stone tools, the oldest evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica, are associated with the arrival of various groups of hunter-gatherers about 10,000 to 7,000 years BCE in the Turrialba Valley.<\/a> The presence of Clovis culture<\/a> type spearheads and arrows from South America opens the possibility that, in this area, two different cultures coexisted..<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Agriculture became evident in the populations that lived in Costa Rica about 5,000 years ago. They mainly grew tubers and roots. For the first and second millennia BCE there were already settled farming communities. These were small and scattered, although the timing of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as the main livelihood in the territory is still unknown.<\/p>\n The earliest use of pottery appears around 2,000 to 3,000 BCE. Shards of pots, cylindrical vases, platters, gourds and other forms of vases decorated with grooves, prints, and some modeled after animals have been found.<\/p>\n The impact of indigenous peoples on modern Costa Rican culture has been relatively small compared to other nations, since the country lacked a strong native civilization to begin with. Most of the native population was absorbed into the Spanish-speaking colonial society through inter-marriage, except for some small remnants, the most significant of which are the Bribri<\/a> and Boruca<\/a> tribes who still inhabit the mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca<\/a>, in the southeastern part of Costa Rica, near the frontier with Panama.<\/p>\n The name la costa rica, meaning “rich coast” in the Spanish language, was in some accounts first applied by Christopher Columbus<\/a>, who sailed to the eastern shores of Costa Rica during his final voyage in 1502, and reported vast quantities of gold jewelry worn by natives. The name may also have come from conquistador Gil Gonz\u00e1lez D\u00e1vila<\/a>, who landed on the west coast in 1522, encountered natives, and appropriated some of their gold.<\/p>\n During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala<\/a>, nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain<\/a>. In practice, the captaincy general was a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica’s distance from the capital of the captaincy in Guatemala, its legal prohibition under Spanish law from trade with its southern neighbor Panama, then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada<\/a> (i.e. Colombia), and lack of resources such as gold and silver, made Costa Rica into a poor, isolated, and sparsely-inhabited region within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica was described as “the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America” by a Spanish governor in 1719.<\/p>\n Another important factor behind Costa Rica’s poverty was the lack of a significant indigenous population available for encomienda<\/a> (forced labor), which meant most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work on their own land, preventing the establishment of large haciendas<\/a> (plantations). For all these reasons, Costa Rica was, by and large, unappreciated and overlooked by the Spanish Crown and left to develop on its own. The circumstances during this period are believed to have led to many of the idiosyncrasies for which Costa Rica has become known, while concomitantly setting the stage for Costa Rica’s development as a more egalitarian society than the rest of its neighbors. Costa Rica became a “rural democracy” with no oppressed mestizo or indigenous class. It was not long before Spanish settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil and a milder climate than that of the lowlands.<\/p>\n Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On 15 September 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810\u201321)<\/a>, the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. That date is still celebrated as Independence Day in Costa Rica even though, technically, under the Spanish Constitution of 1812<\/a> that had been readopted in 1820, Nicaragua and Costa Rica had become an autonomous province with its capital in Le\u00f3n<\/a>.<\/p>\n Upon independence, Costa Rican authorities faced the issue of officially deciding the future of the country. Two bands formed, the Imperialists, defended by Cartago<\/a> and Heredia<\/a> cities which were in favor of joining the Mexican Empire, and the Republicans, represented by the cities of San Jos\u00e9 and Alajuela<\/a> who defended full independence. Because of the lack of agreement on these two possible outcomes, the first civil war of Costa Rica occurred. The Battle of Ochomogo<\/a> took place on the Hill of Ochomogo, located in the Central Valley<\/a> in 1823. The conflict was won by the Republicans and, as a consequence, the city of Cartago lost its status as the capital, which moved to San Jos\u00e9.<\/p>\n In 1838, long after the Federal Republic of Central America ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign. The considerable distance and poor communication routes between Guatemala City<\/a> and the Central Plateau, where most of the Costa Rican population lived then and still lives now, meant the local population had little allegiance to the federal government in Guatemala. From colonial times to now, Costa Rica’s reluctance to become economically tied with the rest of Central America has been a major obstacle to efforts for greater regional integration.<\/p>\n Coffee<\/a> was first planted in Costa Rica in 1808, and by the 1820s, it surpassed tobacco<\/a>, sugar<\/a>, and cacao<\/a> as a primary export. Coffee production remained Costa Rica’s principal source of wealth well into the 20th century, creating a wealthy class of growers, the so-called Coffee Barons. The revenue helped to modernize the country.<\/p>\n Most of the coffee exported was grown around the main centers of population in the Central Plateau and then transported by oxcart to the Pacific port of Puntarenas<\/a> after the main road was built in 1846. By the mid-1850s the main market for coffee was Britain. It soon became a high priority to develop an effective transportation route from the Central Plateau to the Atlantic Ocean. For this purpose, in the 1870s, the Costa Rican government contracted with U.S. businessman Minor C. Keith<\/a> to build a railroad from San Jos\u00e9 to the Caribbean port of Lim\u00f3n<\/a>. Despite enormous difficulties with construction, disease, and financing, the railroad was completed in 1890.<\/p>\n Most Afro-Costa Ricans descend from Jamaican immigrants who worked in the construction of that railway and now make up about 3% of Costa Rica’s population. U.S. convicts, Italians and Chinese immigrants also participated in the construction project. In exchange for completing the railroad, the Costa Rican government granted Keith large tracts of land and a lease on the train route, which he used to produce bananas and export them to the United States. As a result, bananas came to rival coffee as the principal Costa Rican export, while foreign-owned corporations (including the United Fruit Company later) began to hold a major role in the national economy and eventually became a symbol of the exploitative export economy. The major labor dispute between the peasants and the United Fruit Company<\/a> (The Great Banana Strike) was a major event in the country’s history and was an important step that would eventually lead to the formation of effective trade unions in Costa Rica<\/a>, as the company was required to sign a collective agreement with its workers in 1938.<\/p>\n Historically, Costa Rica has generally enjoyed greater peace and more consistent political stability than many of its fellow Latin American nations. Since the late 19th century, however, Costa Rica has experienced two significant periods of violence. In 1917\u201319, General Federico Tinoco Granados<\/a> ruled as a military dictator until he was overthrown and forced into exile. The unpopularity of Tinoco’s regime<\/a> led, after he was overthrown, to a considerable decline in the size, wealth, and political influence of the Costa Rican military. In 1948, Jos\u00e9 Figueres Ferrer<\/a> led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election between Rafael \u00c1ngel Calder\u00f3n Guardia<\/a> (who had been president between 1940 and 1944) and Otilio Ulate Blanco<\/a>. With more than 2,000 dead, the resulting 44-day Costa Rican Civil War<\/a> was the bloodiest event in Costa Rica during the 20th century.<\/p>\n The victorious rebels formed a government junta that abolished the military altogether, and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution by a democratically elected assembly. Having enacted these reforms, the junta transferred power to Ulate on 8 November 1949. After the coup d’\u00e9tat, Figueres became a national hero, winning the country’s first democratic election under the new constitution in 1953<\/a>. Since then, Costa Rica has held 14 presidential elections, the latest in 2018<\/a>. With uninterrupted democracy dating back to at least 1948, the country is the region’s most stable.<\/p>\n Costa Rica is located on the Central American isthmus. It borders the Caribbean Sea (to the east) and the Pacific Ocean (to the west), with a total of 1,290 kilometres (800 mi) of coastline, 212 km (132 mi) on the Caribbean coast and 1,016 km (631 mi) on the Pacific. Costa Rica also borders Nicaragua to the north (309 km or 192 mi of border) and Panama to the south-southeast (330 km or 210 mi of border). In total, Costa Rica comprises 51,100 square kilometres (19,700 sq mi) plus 589 square kilometres (227 sq mi) of territorial waters.<\/p>\n The highest point in the country is Cerro Chirrip\u00f3<\/a>, at 3,819 metres (12,530 ft); it is the fifth highest peak in Central America. The highest volcano in the country is the Iraz\u00fa Volcano<\/a> (3,431 m or 11,257 ft) and the largest lake is Lake Arenal<\/a>. There are 14 known volcanoes in Costa Rica, and six of them have been active in the last 75 years. The country has also experienced at least ten earthquakes of magnitude 5.7 or higher (3 of magnitude 7.0 or higher) in the last century.<\/p>\n Costa Rica also comprises several islands. Cocos Island (24 square kilometres or 9.3 square miles) stands out because of its distance from the continental landmass, 480 kilometres (300 mi) from Puntarenas, but Isla Calero<\/a> is the largest island of the country (151.6 square kilometres or 58.5 square miles). Over 25% of Costa Rica’s national territory is protected by SINAC<\/a> (the National System of Conservation Areas), which oversees all of the country’s protected areas<\/a>. Costa Rica also possesses the greatest density of species in the world.<\/p>\n Many foreign companies (manufacturing and services) operate in Costa Rica’s Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives. Well over half of that type of investment has come from the U.S. According to the government, the zones supported over 82 thousand direct jobs and 43 thousand indirect jobs in 2015. Companies with facilities in the America Free Zone in Heredia, for example, include Intel, Dell, HP, Bayer, Bosch, DHL, IBM and Okay Industries.<\/p>\n Of the GDP, 5.5% is generated by agriculture, 18.6% by industry and 75.9% by services. Agriculture employs 12.9% of the labor force, industry 18.57%, services 69.02%. For the region, its unemployment level is moderately high (8.2% in 2016, according to the IMF). Although 20.5% of the population lives below the poverty line (2017), Costa Rica has one of the highest standards of living in Central America.<\/p>\n High quality health care is provided by the government at low cost to the users. Housing is also very affordable. Costa Rica is recognized in Latin America for the quality of its educational system. Because of its educational system, Costa Rica has one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America, 97%. General Basic Education is mandatory and provided without cost to the user. A US government report confirms that the country has “historically placed a high priority on education and the creation of a skilled work force” but notes that the high school drop-out rate is increasing. As well, Costa Rica would benefit from more courses in languages such as English, Portuguese, Mandarin and French and also in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).<\/p>\n Costa Rica has free trade agreements with many countries, including the US. There are no significant trade barriers that would affect imports and the country has been lowering its tariffs in accordance with other Central American countries.<\/p>\n The central location provides access to American markets and direct ocean access to Europe and Asia. The most important exports in 2015 (in order of dollar value) were medical instruments, bananas, tropical fruits, integrated circuits and orthopedic appliances. The most significant products imported in 2015 (in order of dollar value) were refined petroleum, automobiles, packaged medications, broadcasting equipment and computers.<\/p>\n Pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, software development, and ecotourism<\/a> have become the prime industries in Costa Rica’s economy. High levels of education among its residents make the country an attractive investing location. Since 1999, tourism earns more foreign exchange than the combined exports of the country’s three main cash crops: bananas and pineapples especially, but also other crops, including coffee. Coffee production played a key role in Costa Rica’s history and in 2006, was the third cash crop export. As a small country, Costa Rica now provides under 1% of the world’s coffee production. In 2015, the value of coffee exports was US$305.9 million, a small part of the total agricultural exports of US$2.7 billion. Coffee production increased by 13.7% percent in 2015-16, declined by 17.5% in 2016\u201317, but was expected to increase by about 15% in the subsequent year.<\/p>\n Costa Rica is the most-visited nation in the Central American region, with 2.9 million foreign visitors in 2016, up 10% from 2015. In 2015, the tourism sector was responsible for 5.8% of the country’s GDP, or $3.4 billion. In 2016, the highest number of tourists came from the United States, with 1,000,000 visitors, followed by Europe with 434,884 arrivals. According to Costa Rica Vacations, once tourists arrive in the country, 22% go to Tamarindo<\/a>, 18% go to Arenal<\/a>, 17% pass through Liberia<\/a> (where the Daniel Oduber Quir\u00f3s International Airport<\/a> is located), 16% go to San Jos\u00e9,<\/a> the country’s capital (passing through Juan Santamar\u00eda International Airport<\/a>), while 18% choose Manuel Antonio and 7% Monteverde.<\/p>\n By 2004, tourism was generating more revenue and foreign exchange than bananas and coffee combined. In 2016, the World Travel & Tourism Council’s estimates indicated a direct contribution to the GDP of 5.1% and 110,000 direct jobs in Costa Rica; the total number of jobs indirectly supported by tourism was 271,000.<\/p>\n A pioneer of ecotourism, Costa Rica draws many tourists to its extensive series of national parks and other protected areas. In the 2011 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index<\/a>, Costa Rica ranked 44th in the world and second among Latin American countries after Mexico in 2011. By the time of the 2017 report, the country had reached 38th place, slightly behind Panama. The Ethical Traveler group’s ten countries on their 2017 list of The World’s Ten Best Ethical Destinations includes Costa Rica. The country scored highest in environmental protection among the winners. Costa Rica began reversing deforestation in the 1990s, and they are moving towards using only renewable energy.<\/p>\n There are many modes of transport in Costa Rica but the country’s infrastructure has suffered from a lack of maintenance and new investment. There is an extensive road system of more than 30,000 kilometers, although much of it is in disrepair; this also applies to ports and railways.<\/p>\n Most parts of the country are accessible by road. The main highland cities in the country’s Central Valley are connected by paved all-weather roads with the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and by the Pan American Highway<\/a> with Nicaragua and Panama, the neighboring countries to the North and the South. Costa Rica’s ports are struggling to keep pace with growing trade.<\/p>\n Previously useful rail routes are in disrepair and no longer utilized.<\/p>\n There are two main international airports in Costa Rica, one in San Jose<\/a> and one in Liberia<\/a>.<\/p>\n The national flag of Costa Rica is based on a design created in 1848.<\/p>\n The flag was officially adopted on 27 November 1906, including a slight modification to the placement and design of the entrenched coat of arms. The flag was updated to reflect concurrent modifications to the national coat of arms in 1964 and 1998. Along with Haiti<\/a>, Afghanistan<\/a>, and Bolivia<\/a>, it is one of four national flags in the world which has a depiction of its flag within the flag itself.<\/p>\n The blue, white and red horizontal design was created in 1848 by Pac\u00edfica Fern\u00e1ndez<\/a>, wife of then president Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Castro Madriz<\/a>. Fern\u00e1ndez was inspired by France’s 1848 Revolution<\/a>, and the creation of the French Second Republic<\/a>. The new design to the Costa Rican flag adopted the colors of the French tricolor.<\/p>\n The blue color stands for the sky, opportunities, idealism, and perseverance. The white color stands for peace, wisdom and happiness. The red color stands for the blood spilt by martyrs in defense of the country, as well as the warmth and generosity of the people.<\/p>\n The coat of arms of Costa Rica was also revised in 1848 and placed in the center of the flag. In 1906, when the coat of arms was modified, the update was placed in a white disk on the flag’s red stripe, and later on an oval, set toward the hoist.<\/p>\n The coat of arms depicts the isthmus between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, with 3 volcanoes. The 7 stars stand for the 7 provinces of Costa Rica. The Spanish name of the country is scrolled on a white banner, Republica de Costa Rica (Republic of Costa Rica), and the Central American union is recognized in the blue upper scroll, America Central, recalling the former United Provinces of Central America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The flag was officially adopted on 27 November 1906, including a slight modification to the placement and design of the entrenched coat of arms. The flag was updated to reflect concurrent modifications to the national coat of arms in 1964 and 1998. Along with Haiti, Afghanistan, and Bolivia, it is one of four national flags in the world which has a depiction of its flag within the flag itself.<\/p>\n The blue, white and red horizontal design was created in 1848 by Pac\u00edfica Fern\u00e1ndez, wife of then president Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Castro Madriz. Fern\u00e1ndez was inspired by France’s 1848 Revolution, and the creation of the French Second Republic. The new design to the Costa Rican flag adopted the colors of the French tricolor.<\/p>\n The blue color stands for the sky, opportunities, idealism, and perseverance. The white color stands for peace, wisdom and happiness. The red color stands for the blood spilt by martyrs in defense of the country, as well as the warmth and generosity of the people. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[71,59,5,6,7,41,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/Costa-Rica-on-the-Globe-300x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>History:<\/h2>\n
Pre-Columbian Period:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/A-Stone-Sphere-Created-by-the-Diquis-Culture-277x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Spanish Colonization:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/The-Ujarr\u00e1s-Historical-Site-in-the-Oros\u00ed-Valley-1686-1693-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Independence:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/Gregorio-Jos\u00e9-Ram\u00edrez-the-Republican-Leader-209x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>19th Century:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/First-Postage-Stamp-1862-253x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>20th Century:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/City-Map-of-Costa-Rica-300x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Geography:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/Arenal-Volcano-300x201.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Economy:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/Coffee-Plantation-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/Intel-Facility-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/Po\u00e1s-Volcano-Crater-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Transportation:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/Aeropuerto-Juan-Santamaria-300x118.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Flag of Costa Rica:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/02\/Flag-of-Costa-Rica-300x180.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>