Costa Rica Statistics

Costa Rica has been an independent country since 1821, located in Central America with a territory of 51.100km2. It borders with Nicaragua and Panama and its highest peak is the Cerro Chirripo being 3.819 meters tall. Its capital is San Jose.

Right now, the population reaches 5.154.000 habitants and the life expectancy are 76.8 years old for men and 81.9 for women. The birth rate go around 13.4% and the death rate 5.2%.

Since Costa Rica is near Ecuador, it has beautiful tropical weather. It only has 2 seasons (dry and rainy) but the days are not so different. 

Costa Rica is the 58th country in the DQL (Digital Quality Life) ranking made by the cybersecurity company Surfshark. The evaluations are defined by 5 edges that are: Electronic infrastructure, internet affordability, cybersecurity, internet quality and electronic government. 

There’s a lot of political stability and freedom of speech.There has not been a death penalty since 1877 and the abolition of the army in Costa Rica was in 1948. Since then, people in Costa Rica have had free access to good quality public health and education.

From various perspectives, Costa Rica is a great example of sustainable development. It has had an economic rise in the last 25 years due mostly to foreign investment and exportations. 

On the other hand, Costa Rica has built a green brand by having sustainable politics, practices and achievements related to the environment. With the conservation of natural territories and tourism that doesn’t affect the wildlife and being the first country worldwide to revert deforestation with reforestation. 

Political stability, social circumstances and constant growth make it possible that Costa Rica has the lowest poverty rate in Latin America and the Caribbean. Human development statistic of the country keep it on the rise in world rankings. 

However, the covid-19  pandemic is not easy to overcome. Costa Rica is facing social and economic challenges, including an unemployment rate of around 20% of the population and the poverty rate reaching 19.8% in 2020. But the government is doing a real effort to change this by decreasing costs and fiscal consolidation.  Costa Rica is slowly but surely recovering from the losses it had.

But then, Russia attacked Ukraine and Costa Rica, again facing difficulties. Fuel prices, the dollar exchange rate, the container crisis, food and utilities prices have been incremented, taxes as well so the government can keep trying to keep the country afloat. It is really hard to get bank loans of any kind at this moment in Costa Rica because inflation is counteracting the economic growth, affecting the lower income households more than any other group. 

One of the biggest economic activities in Costa Rica is tourism which is increasing since the second half of 2022. There is hope that all of that is going to get stabilized but it is worth it as an example of how vulnerable the country is to external investment. The government is compromised to guarantee the well being of the people living in Costa Rica.