Yearbook 2004
Costa Rica. In early October, a series of corruption scandals shook Costa Rica, which is otherwise considered one of Latin America’s least corrupt countries. It was revealed, among other things. that almost a quarter of a US $ 40 million loan from Finland in 2001 to Costa Rica’s Social Security Fund has actually gone directly to employees. At the same time, former President Rafael Calderón was banned from leaving the country until clarity was reached regarding the half-million dollars paid to him through a bank account in Panama. In addition, the French telecommunications company Alcatel found that the state telecommunications and electricity company ICE had contracted with US $ 3.6 million to be able to contract US $ 260 million for both mobile and fixed telephony.
The total population in Costa Rica is 5,094,129 people in 2020. The scandals have increased an already widespread politician disdain; opinion polls conducted concurrently with the revelations showed that 50-65% of voters lost interest in voting.
COSTA RICA. – Between the 1963 and 1973 censuses the population increased from 1,336,274 residents to 1,871,780, reporting an average annual increase of 4%, one of the largest in Latin America and in the world. In 1975, according to an estimate, the residents were 1.994.000 and the average density was 39 residents per km 2, but this value is of little significance when we consider that the province of San José has a density of 128 (and the San José basin over 400), while in the other districts the figures range between 81 and 10. The density of the province of San José is it remains high because, if on the one hand there is a demographic influx due to the agricultural colonization of the western and eastern lowlands, on the other we are witnessing the strong growth of the capital, which in 1971 reached 211,176 residents in the city and 395,401 in the metropolitan area, increasingly accentuating its traditional dominance in the urban network of the state. See smartercomputing.org for Costa Rica travel guide.
Costa Rica remains an essentially rural country: the agricultural population is 45% of the active population and the rural economy provides over a fifth of the gross national product and almost all exports. In 1973 the production of coffee was 900,000 q; the banana and cane crops, in the last fifteen years steadily increasing, in 1973 supplied 13 million q of bananas and 1.9 million q of sugar; instead, that of cocoa is in decline and those of pineapple and abaca have lost much of their importance. Among the products destined for internal consumption, rice and corn always prevail, but cotton and tobacco have also become important.
The cattle herd has doubled in the last fifteen years (1.7 million head in 1973) and is increasingly contributing to exports.
Mining remains modest, despite the discovery of hematite (Santa Cruz), sulfur (San Carlos) and bauxite (San Isidro); the latter, however, is expected to be used in the near future.
In 1973 the installed power was 361,000 kW and the energy produced 1346 million kWh.
Manufacturing activity accounts for about one fifth of the gross national product and is still largely made up of small, mostly food, factories concentrated in the San José metropolitan area. The first large plant was built in 1963 in Puntarenas for the manufacture of fertilizers; an oil refinery operates in Limón.
The trade balance is passive. Mainly bananas are exported (departing from the peaceful ports of Golfito and Queipos and the Atlantic port of Limón) and coffee (from the port of Limón and the peaceful port of Puntarenas). The exchange takes place mainly with the United States; the neighboring Central American countries and the Federal Republic of Germany follow, both as suppliers and customers, and Japan, only as a supplier.
The number of tourists, in strong increase, in 1974 reached 280,000 units.
The main ports are those mentioned for export. Juan Santamaría-San José Airport has international functions. The railways extend for 800 km; the roads for 4000 km, of which 660 belong to the “Pan-American”.
San José
San José, the capital of Costa Rica; 288,200 residents (2012). San José is located at the foot of the Central Cordillera in central Costa Rica. The city is the center of the country’s industry, with mainly the food industry but also the textile and plastic industry and the chemical industry.
San José, located on the Pan-American Highway and linked to the coastal city of Puntarenas on the Pacific coast and Limón on the Caribbean, is the country’s leading communications center. The city also has an international airport and two universities.
San José, founded under the name of Villa Nueva in 1736, became the capital of 1823.