Costa Rica, located in southern Central America, is a mountainous country with three northwest-to-southeast-running mountain ranges that run across most of the country. To the north are the Guanacaste Mountains, the Central Mountains to the center, and the Taramainga Mountains to the south. The coat of arms of Costa Rica is covered with three high mountains, illustrating the geography of the country.
A land of volcanoes
This country is famous for its volcanoes and is known as the "Land of Volcanoes". Among them, the two active volcanoes of Ilasu and Boas in the central part are the most striking. It has now been opened as a tourist attraction, with winding roads leading directly to the crater. Both volcanoes are intermittently active. Mount Irazú, located northeast of st. Joseph's city, erupted suddenly in the last century, spewing hundreds of thousands of tons of gravel, ash sand and smoke into the air, and then scattering it to the ground near a radius of more than ten kilometers, almost completely destroying the surrounding farmland, trees and houses.
Costa Rica covers an area of 51,000 square kilometers, most of which is between 8-11 degrees north latitude. Because of its proximity to the equator, the climate should have been hot. However, due to the country's mountainous terrain, high terrain, and the influence of the Pacific and Atlantic monsoons, the climate is cool and pleasant, with an average annual temperature of 21 degrees, which is an ideal place for vacation and summer escape.
The excellent natural environment makes the whole territory of Costa Rica lush with lush vegetation and a wide variety of wildlife. The country is known by many natural scientists as the "Bridge to the Wildlife of the Americas" and is one of the transitional areas for wildlife in North and South America. There are both subtropical and tropical forests in the territory. In the north and south, many forests remain pristine, with more than 2,000 species of trees alone.
The vast forest vegetation has also become a place for a variety of animals to survive and reproduce, jaguars, jaguars, white-faced monkeys, anteaters, wild boars, deer, snakes and so on. The Costa Rican government has established 35 large natural national parks here. Within the national park, only activities such as tourism, public education and scientific research are generally allowed, and logging and hunting are strictly prohibited. More than 2 million tourists come here every year.
Coffee with bananas
Although the land area is not as large as that of Brazil, Argentina and other South American countries, Costa Rica is an agricultural developed country. At one point, the output value of agriculture and animal husbandry was more than 70% of GDP. In agriculture and animal husbandry, which mainly produces coffee and bananas, it is the third largest banana exporter in the world, and it is also one of the largest pineapple exporters in the world.
Costa Rica has been growing coffee and bananas on a large scale for more than a hundred years, and coffee and aroma production has become a pillar industry of the country's economy. At present, there are more than 80,000 hectares of land growing coffee in the country, and the average yield per hectare is 1750-2000 kg, which is one of the highest coffee yields in the world.
Along the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, the terrain is flat, fertile, hot and rainfall, making it ideal for banana production. Costa Rica has produced more than 2.2 million tonnes of bananas a year over the past three years, making it the world's eleventh largest producer and third largest banana exporter. In 2019, Costa Rica exported up to $1 billion in bananas, exporting 120 million boxes, and banana exports accounted for nearly 9% of total exports, making it the largest export of agricultural products. The European Union and the United States are its banana export destinations, accounting for 99% of Costa Rica's banana exports.
Costa Rica's banana and coffee exports, while solving a large number of employment problems, have also created vulnerability to the country's economy. In the international market, the price of coffee and bananas is not stable, and once it encounters a sharp decline, it will affect exports and affect the income of practitioners.
Develop national industries
In order to change the weakness and instability of the agricultural economy, Costa Rica attaches greater importance to the development of its own small and medium-sized industries, encourages private investment in the country, and actively introduces foreign capital and advanced technology and equipment. Various economic and administrative measures have been taken to promote the development of the country's industrial production in order to minimize imports and increase exports. In the late 1990s, Intel began investing in semiconductor packaging plants here, and the output of packaged CPUs once accounted for one-fifth of the country's total exports.
According to the data, Costa Rica's gdp in 2018 exceeded $60 billion, and the per capita GDP was as high as $12,000, far exceeding the income level of Brazil, the largest economy in South America. Its economy is in China, which is on par with Kunshan, but the national income level is higher!