</image> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Level</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> </infobox>Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a liberal, colonial, capitalist state located in Central America next to Nicaragua and Panama.
Positives
- Costa Rica lacks a military, arguably making it the most peaceful country in Latin America. This also created political stability as it prevented the military from launching coups.
- Costa Rica has the highest levels of life expectancy, education and human development in Latin America. It is considered higher than other countries at similar income levels.
- Costa Rica also has progressive environmental policies. It is the only country to meet all five UNDP criteria established to measure environmental sustainability. It was identified by the NEF as the greenest country in the world in 2009. By 2019, 99.62% of its electricity was generated from green sources particularly hydro, wind, geothermal and solar.
History
Indigenous History
Humans began to live in Costa Rica around 12,000 - 9,000 years ago, inhabited by nomadic family-based clans of foragers. Living off giant armadillos and sloths and vegetables. The area was sparsely populated by indigenous people compared to other areas.
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire claimed Costa Rica in 1502, and it was largely left as an undeveloped area of land. Of course, the Spanish Empire waged a brutal war of extermination against the indigenous population.
Independence
Costa Rica joined in the Latin American Wars of Independence and broke free from the Spanish Empire in 1821 and became a part of the United Provinces of Central America (later called the Federal Republic of Central America) and became independent after a war in 1835, and became a democratic republic in 1847 with universal male suffrage but remained extremely poor due to lack of infrastructure and industry. In 1856, the Costa Rican army attacked William Walker's efforts to set up slave colonies in Nicaragua and defeated him.
Liberal State
In 1870 the government was overthrown by liberals, who abolished the death penalty, torture and set presidential term limits to four years. However, the government engaged in religious persecution and attempted to be increasingly authoritarian while developing an export economy centered around the exporting of banana and coffee. However, the government later relaxed its religious persecution and allowed protestants and buddhists into the country. The country was modernised as railways were built, however, the United Fruit Company began to own most of the land and infrastructure in the country.
20th Century
In 1917, a military dictator rose in the country, but he fell in 1919. In 1921, Costa Rica invaded Panama to claim several towns and it won. But the liberal state entered crisis in 1929 with the Great Depression. The Communist Party led a workers' movement and several strikes and a welfare state was created as the government followed Keynesian theory and built up their infrastructure. The reforms and political violence were extremely controversial and led to a bloody civil war that killed 2,000 people.
The war was one by José Figueres Ferrer, a social democrat who abolished the army to prevent another civil war. This meant Costa Rica was spared the fate of most Latin American countries in the 20th century which fell into brutal civil wars, dictatorships, invasions or rigged elections because of US imperialism as there was no army to turn against the government meaning a direct invasion was the only possible measure. The government also gave women rights to vote, nationalised banks, expanded the welfare state, outlawed the communist party, guaranteed public education, citizenship for immigrants and cracking down on government corruption. Although the governments support for the Caribbean Legion was extremely controversial.
The country entered a strange relationship with the USA, where it received some support from the CIA but did not assist in wars in neighbouring countries and retained progressive policies, notably expanding into environmental protection recently, being considered one of the most environmentally friendly countries in the world.