Search This Blog

Sunday 27 July 2014

Costa Rica

Costa Rica was sparsely inhabited by indigenous people before it came under Spanish rule in the 16th century.

Officials in Panama used the name Costa Rica (Rich Coast) for the first time in 1539 to distinguish the territory between Panama and Nicaragua.

Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On September 15, 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–21), Costa Rica declared independence from Spain jointly with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

September 15th is 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.

The Costa Rica flag was officially adopted on November 27, 1906. It was updated to reflect concurrent modifications to the national coat of arms in 1964 and 1998. The flag of Thailand is similar to the Costa Rican flag, except the blue and red stripes are reversed.

Flag of Costa Rica

Costa Rica permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming the first of a few sovereign nations without a standing army. The Costa Rican government stated that the army "would be replaced with an army of teachers." Today, the country has free universal public education and a literacy rate of 97%.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) ranked Costa Rica first in its 2012 Happy Planet Index. The index takes life expectancy, happiness and environmental sustainability into consideration.

In 2012, Costa Rica became the first country in the Americas to ban recreational hunting after the country’s legislature approved the popular measure by a wide margin.

While Costa Rica has only about 0.03% of the world's landmass, it contains 4% of all known living species of flora and fauna.

Costa Rica is amongst the world´s biggest exporters of pineapples. The country´s pineapple industry is worth US$ 800 million to the national economy.

Around 25% of Costa Rica's land area is in protected national parks and protected areas, the largest percentage of protected areas in the world.

All five volcanoes in Costa Rica are active. They are known as the Poás, the Irazú, the Arenal, the Rincón de la Vieja, and the Turrialba.

Costa Rica stands as the most visited nation in the Central American region, with 2.9 million foreign visitors in 2016.

Costa Rica’s national symbol is the clay-colored robin known as the yigüirro.

Sources WikipediaFacts.randomhistory.com/

No comments:

Post a Comment