Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a sovereign state in Central America. bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Costa Rica covers an area of 51,060 square kilometers (19,700 sq mi) and has a population of around 4.5 million people. It is a unitary presidential constitutional republic. The capital and largest city is San Jose with over 3 million residents.
Costa Rica was sparsely inhabited by indigenous peoples before coming under Spanish rule in the 16th century. Since then, Costa Rica has remained among the most stable, prosperous and progressive nations in Latin America with steady economic growth and declining poverty rates. According to the 2019 Human Development Index from UNDP, it ranks as a high human development country with a HDI score of 0.795 placing it 34th out of 188 countries worldwide and first among Latin American countries.. In 2018, it was ranked 42nd on The Economist’s list of The World’s Most Livable Countries