COSTA RICA

History:

Costa Rica is one of the American countries, known by its democratic traditions which are socially and politically different from the majority of the Latin-American countries. The national incomes are spent in education and health and not like the other countries that normally use this money in military support. It has a very big respect to the free expression and to the popular suffrage.

In 1502, Cristobal Colón called this coast with the name of "Costa Rica", due to the big richness that the zone had. But it was only a guess, Costa Rica was less rich than what he thought and they only found very few silver and gold what caused this nation to be one of the purest during the colony.

Due to the lack of silver and gold and Indian workmanship only a few colonists came to Costa Rica. In the independence day in 1821, the quantity of people was less than 75000, and it was not until the middle of 1800 that the colonists established their homes in the Meseta Central and started to move to other parts.

After the independence in 1821 a progressive government promoted the coffee and banana production banana and the construction of a very modern train (one of the most important of the world at that time). After those days Costa Rica started to be known as a country of very solid peaceful and democratic traditions. Even thou there were a couple of dictators and one civil war these periods of time were really short. In 1870, under Tomás Guardias government the first constitution was created and this one assured the presidency succession. This one continued working until 1949.

There is an important amount of black people all along the Caribbean coast. Their antecessors came from Jamaica and other English colonies in 1870 and they were brought here to build the train rails and to cultivate banana.

In the 1989 the amount of habitants was estimated to be of 3000000 people which more less half of them lived in the Meseta Central, near San José.

In 1982 Don Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez was elected president of the Republic. He promoted a program of economic austerity. Later on in 1986 was elected president of Costa Rica the Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez from the Liberación Nacional party, who worked to finish the civil wars that were causing a lot of harm to Central America. In 1987 he started the peace plan called cease to the fire in Centro America. Arias won the peace Nobel in 1987. In 1990 was elected the president Rafael Angel Calderón Fournier from the Partido Unidad Social Cristiana. Right now the President of Costa Rica is the Engineer José Maria Figueres.

 

 

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Última modificación: Jueves, 19 Febrero 1998