Everything you need to know about Costa Rica
Explore Costa Rica from the Central Valley and volcanic highlands to Guanacaste, the Caribbean coast and the Osa Peninsula. Learn its provinces, cities and waters, discover ten illustrated topics and begin everyday Spanish.
Read it, then make it stick
Geography of Costa Rica
Seven provinces connect the Central Valley with Guanacaste, the Caribbean lowlands and the southern Pacific.
Know the shape of the country
Find all seven provinces, place their capitals and selected towns, then locate Lake Arenal, three rivers and four coastal waters. Zoom in to separate the Central Valley cities. Province boundaries and the land mask come from Natural Earth; inland water geometry comes from OpenStreetMap. City pins mark settlement centres.
Places worth visiting
Essential · Theatre
National Theatre of Costa Rica
Opened in 1897, the National Theatre connects San José’s civic life with Costa Rica’s coffee-export era.
Start with San José and the volcanoes of the central highlands, then explore cloud forest, the Caribbean coast and the southern Pacific. These pins mark sites and visitor areas, rather than park boundaries. Check official park guidance before visiting active volcanoes or remote reserves. Essential is our shortlist for a first trip, and worth a detour goes further. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take Spanish with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of Costa Rica, the countries marked guide have a page like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
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