Costa Rica country guide: sources and map licences Reviewed 23 October 2026 Guide: /atlas/costa-rica Maps: /atlas/costa-rica/provinces, /cities and /waters Reading and quiz: /facts/cr READING Geography, history and everyday life: https://www.britannica.com/place/Costa-Rica https://www.britannica.com/place/Costa-Rica/History https://www.britannica.com/place/Costa-Rica/Daily-life-and-social-customs Constitution (1949, with amendments in the linked edition): https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Costa_Rica_2011 Article 12 prohibits the army as a permanent institution and provides for police forces. The abolition was announced on 1 December 1948; the constitution followed in 1949. Articles 75 and 76 cover religion and language. Article 106 provides for 57 deputies; article 134 sets the four-year presidential term. Constitutional wording is distinguished from informal descriptions such as "no security forces". UNESCO heritage: https://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/cr/ https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1453/ https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/oxherding-and-oxcart-traditions-in-costa-rica-00103 The Diquís chiefdom settlements and stone spheres property comprises four sites, including Finca 6, and was inscribed in 2014. Oxcart traditions were proclaimed in 2005 and inscribed on the Representative List in 2008. La Amistad is shared with Panama; Cocos Island is a separate offshore World Heritage property. Economy, trade and international membership: https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/costarica/overview https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/cafta-dr-dominican-republic-central-america-fta https://www.oecd.org/en/countries/costa-rica.html CAFTA-DR entered into force for Costa Rica on 1 January 2009. OECD membership dates to 2021. Renewable electricity and total energy consumption are distinct measures. The guide avoids undated export rankings and fixed electricity shares. People: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1987/arias/facts/ https://www.nasa.gov/former-astronaut-franklin-r-chang-diaz/ Park and archaeological context: https://www.sinac.go.cr/EN/Pages/default.aspx https://www.museocostarica.go.cr/ https://www.teatronacional.go.cr/ The sights map uses curated, approximate site or visitor-area pins, not park boundaries or recommended access routes. The Corcovado pin marks the Sirena area; Tortuguero marks the visitor area near the village. Check official information for volcanic activity, access restrictions and reservations before travelling. MAP GEOMETRY Natural Earth 1:10m admin-1 states and provinces, public domain: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-admin-1-states-provinces/ https://naturalearth.s3.amazonaws.com/10m_cultural/ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces.zip https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/ The seven province codes retain their ISO 3166-2 suffixes: CR-SJ, CR-A, CR-C, CR-H, CR-G, CR-P and CR-L. Source boundaries were simplified by 0.00015 degrees and rounded to six decimal places. A land union from Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama is clipped to the map context. The mainland frame excludes Cocos Island, which belongs to Puntarenas but lies hundreds of kilometres offshore. Inland waters: copyright OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/75917 Lake Arenal https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6403989 Río Tempisque https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6403987 Río Reventazón https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/17997623 Río Sarapiquí Geometry retrieved on 23 October 2026 through Nominatim's polygon_geojson output for each relation, using format=json, polygon_geojson=1 and these search terms: "Lake Arenal Costa Rica", "Río Tempisque Costa Rica", "Río Reventazón Costa Rica" and "Río Sarapiquí Costa Rica". https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search The geometry is simplified by 0.00008 degrees and rounded to six decimal places. The committed costa-rica-water-source.geojson snapshot is a derived OSM database available under ODbL; the generated inland water features retain that licence. Marine polygons are curated learning areas for the Gulf of Nicoya, Golfo Dulce, Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. They are clipped against the land mask and do not overlap one another. They are not hydrographic surveys, maritime boundaries or sovereignty claims. River lines show named channels, rather than full drainage basins; the Reventazón target stops where it joins the Parismina system. Lake Arenal is an enlarged hydroelectric reservoir. Geometry does not represent current shorelines, flood extent, navigation conditions or water levels. Settlement coordinates are curated approximate town centres. All seven capitals are included, plus eleven other towns. Central Valley cities require zooming. Puerto Viejo de Talamanca is distinct from Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí; Liberia is the capital of Guanacaste, not a province. Province membership is checked against the generalised polygons with a small tolerance for waterfront settlements. REPRODUCTION python3 scripts/build-costa-rica-maps.py Requires Python 3 and Shapely 2. Committed snapshots: scripts/costa-rica-admin-source.geojson scripts/costa-rica-context-land-source.geojson scripts/costa-rica-water-source.geojson The builder deterministically writes the three public GeoJSON files, the atlas pack and the place-name registry. It does not need network access. PHOTOGRAPHS The ten existing local photographs in /images/facts-north-america/cr/ are reused. Each topic displays its source link and individual credit from src/lib/north-american-facts-heroes.json. The hero uses the Arenal geography photo. Licences include CC BY, CC BY-SA and CC0 as recorded per photograph. Cropping for the displayed frame is an adaptation; original source links remain available. QUESTION REVIEW All 80 questions were captured from the public /facts/cr course on 23 October 2026 and matched to the existing Costa Rica seed prompts. The 33 read-time corrections address a sea described as an ocean, an ambiguous mountain range, the 1948/1949 distinction, language diversity and ambiguous forms of address, UNESCO list dates, national symbols, misleading place types, undated estimates, outdated industrial claims, the incorrect CAFTA-DR date, a casado described as mixed rice and beans, and unsupported food, ancestry and longevity wording. Stored question and lesson IDs, seeds and learning progress are not changed. Run node scripts/test-costa-rica-guide.cjs. Set COSTA_RICA_BASE_URL to check the published guide, maps, reading, images, source file and sitemap.