Costa Rica

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east.

Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", constitutionally abolished its army permanently in 1949. Expenditure on the police corps is about US$17.99 per person. In 2007 the Costa Rican government announced plans for Costa Rica to become the first carbon neutral country by 2021. According to the New Economics Foundation, Costa Rica ranks first in the Happy Planet Index and is the "greenest" country in the world.

In pre-Columbian times the indigenous people were part of the international Intermediate Area located between the Mesoamerican and Andean cultural regions. It was the point where the Mesoamerican and South American native cultures met. During Spanish Colonial times, Costa Rica was described as "the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all Americas" by a Spanish governor in 1719, due to the distance from the Central American cultural and economic center. Costa Rica joined other Central American provinces in 1821 in a joint declaration of independence from Spain. In 1838, long after the Central American Federation ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign.

Historically, Costa Rica has generally enjoyed greater peace and more consistent political stability compared with many of its fellow Latin American nations. Since the late nineteenth century, Costa Rica has experienced only two significant periods of violence in 1917-19 and in 1948. Since 1953, Costa Rica has held 13 presidential elections, the latest being in 2010. All of them have been widely regarded by the international community as peaceful, transparent, and relatively smooth transitions.