created by the
Diquis culture at the
National Museum of Costa Rica.
The sphere is the icon of the country's cultural identity.
Pre-Columbian period Historians have classified the
Indigenous people of Costa Rica as belonging to the
Intermediate Area, where the peripheries of the
Mesoamerican and
Andean native cultures overlapped. More recently,
pre-Columbian Costa Rica has also been described as part of the
Isthmo-Colombian Area. 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. The presence of
Clovis culture type spearheads and arrows from
South America opens the possibility that, in this area, two different cultures coexisted. 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. The earliest use of
pottery appears around 2,000 to 3,000 BCE. Shards of pots, cylindrical vases, platters, gourds, and other vases decorated with grooves, prints, and some modeled after animals have been found. The influence 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 and
Boruca tribes who still inhabit the mountains of the
Cordillera de Talamanca, in the southeastern part of Costa Rica, near the frontier with
Panama.
Spanish colonization The name , meaning "rich coast" in the Spanish language, was in some accounts first applied by
Christopher Columbus, 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 González Dávila, who landed on the west coast in 1522, encountered natives, and obtained some of their gold, sometimes by violent theft and sometimes as gifts from local leaders. . The church was built between 1686 and 1693. During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the
Captaincy General of Guatemala, nominally part of the
Viceroyalty of New Spain. 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
mercantilist Spanish law from trade with its southern neighbor Panama, then part of the
Viceroyalty of New Granada (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.
Independence 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 (1810–1821), 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 that had been readopted in 1820,
Nicaragua and Costa Rica had become an autonomous province with its capital in
León. On 3 March 1824, the government of the State of Costa Rica officially proposed to the municipality of
Nicoya its voluntary incorporation into the country, through a document in which it invited it "if it was convenient to join its Province without going against its will." On 4 July, an open town hall was convened in Nicoya to discuss the matter, but attendees declined the invitation under the argument "that this Party... cannot be dissident." On 25 July 1824, a second
plebiscite was called in the city of Nicoya. After deliberation, the incorporation into Costa Rica was decided in an open town hall meeting, preparing a record in which the main reasons for it were noted, pointing out the advantages in terms of trade, the desire to participate in the advances that are palpable in Costa Rica, the economic, administrative and public service benefits, the creation of schools, security and quiet, referring to the state of war that Nicaragua was experiencing at that time and the fear that it would spread to the Partido populations, in addition to point out the poverty in which its towns find themselves and the geography of the territory as justifications for the union. Three days later, another similar plebiscite was held in
Santa Cruz, with the same result. The election was by majority vote, with 77% of the Party's population in favor of incorporation, and 23% against it. The town of Guanacaste was the only one that declined annexation, due to the ties its residents had with the city of
Rivas, Nicaragua. Upon independence, Costa Rican authorities faced the issue of officially deciding the future of the country. Two bands formed: the Imperialists, defended by
Cartago and
Heredia cities, which were in favor of
joining the
Mexican Empire, and the Republicans, represented by the cities of
San José and
Alajuela who defended full independence. Because of the lack of agreement on these two possible outcomes, the first civil war in Costa Rica occurred. The
Battle of Ochomogo took place on the Hill of
Ochomogo, located in the
Central Valley 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 José. was featured in the first postal stamp issued in 1862. 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 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. Since colonial times, Costa Rica has been reluctant to become economically tied with the rest of Central America. Even today, despite most of its neighbors' efforts to increase regional integration, Costa Rica has remained more independent. Until 1849, when it became part of
Panama,
Chiriquí was part of Costa Rica. Costa Rican pride was assuaged for the loss of this eastern (or southern) territory with the acquisition of
Guanacaste, in the north.
Economic growth in the 19th century Coffee was first planted in Costa Rica in 1808, and by the 1820s, it surpassed
tobacco,
sugar, and
cacao 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. 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 after the main road was built in 1846. 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 to build a railroad from San José to the
Caribbean port of
Limón. Despite enormous difficulties with construction, disease, and financing, the railroad was completed in 1890. 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 (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, as the company was required to sign a collective agreement with its workers in 1938.
20th century Historically, Costa Rica has generally enjoyed greater peace and more consistent political stability than many of its fellow Latin American nations. During the 20th century, however, Costa Rica experienced two significant periods of violence. In 1917–1919, General
Federico Tinoco Granados ruled as a military dictator until he was overthrown and forced into exile. The unpopularity of
Tinoco's regime led, after he was overthrown, to a considerable decline in the size, wealth, and political influence of the Costa Rican military. In 1948,
José Figueres Ferrer led an
armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election between
Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (who had been president between 1940 and 1944) and
Otilio Ulate Blanco. With more than 2,000 dead, the resulting 44-day
Costa Rican Civil War was the bloodiest event in Costa Rica during the 20th century. The victorious rebels formed a government junta that
abolished the military all together 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'état'', Figueres became a national hero, winning the country's first democratic election under the new constitution
in 1953. Starting in 1958, Costa Rica has held additional presidential elections every four years, the latest
in 2026. With uninterrupted democracy dating back to at least 1948, the country is the region's most stable. == Geography ==