Costa Rica

Juan Rivera

Costa Rica is a great, and beautiful place to visit in Central America and the capital is San Jose. Of all the Central American countries, Costa Rica is generally regarded as having the most stable and most democratic government.

Extending from northwest to southeast, Costa Rica is bounded by Nicaragua to the north, by the Caribbean Sea along the 185-mile northeastern coastline, by Panama to the southeast, and by the Pacific Ocean along the 630-mile southwestern coastline. At the country’s narrowest point, the distance between the Pacific and the Caribbean is only about 75 miles.

Dense broad-leaved evergreen forest, which includes mahogany and tropical cedar trees, covers about one-third of Costa Rica’s landscape. On the Talamanca range grow numerous evergreen oaks and, above the timberline, mountain scrub and grasses. The northwest, with the longest dry season, contains open deciduous forest. Palm trees are common on the Caribbean coastline, and mangroves grow on the shallow protected shores of the Nicoya and Dulce gulfs along the Pacific. Mosses, orchids, and other tropical plants are abundant

Many of the world’s tropical biologists have carried out studies at the various research stations of the Organization for Tropical Studies, which has its headquarters in San Pedro, a suburb of San José, as well as at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre