Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million in a land area of 51,060 km2 (19,710 sq mi). An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, with around two million people in the surrounding metropolitan area.
San José is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica, and the capital of the province of the same name. It is in the center of the country, in the mid-west of the Central Valley, within San José Canton. San José is Costa Rica's seat of national government, focal point of political and economic activity, and major transportation hub. San José Canton's population was 288,054 in 2011, and San José's municipal land area is 44.2 square kilometers, with an estimated 333,980 residents in 2015. Together with several other cantons of the central valley, including Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago, it forms the country's Greater Metropolitan Area, with an estimated population of over 2 million in 2017. The city is named in honor of Joseph of Nazareth.
The Melico Salazar Theatre is located in San José, Costa Rica. It maintains a full schedule of concerts, recitals, and plays.
Asociación Deportiva San Carlos is a Costa Rican football team based in Ciudad Quesada, the capital of San Carlos, Alajuela. They currently play in the Costa Rican First Division. Their home stadium is Estadio Carlos Ugalde Álvarez.
Estadio Carlos Ugalde Álvarez is a multi-use stadium in Ciudad Quesada, Costa Rica. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home stadium of A.D. San Carlos. The stadium holds 5,600 people.
Heredia is a district in the Heredia canton of Heredia province, Costa Rica. As the seat of the municipality of Heredia canton, it is awarded the status of city, and by virtue of being the city of the first canton, it is the Province Capital of Heredia province as well. It is 10 kilometers to the north of the country's capital, San José.
Quesada is a district of the San Carlos canton, in the Alajuela province of Costa Rica. It is the head city of the canton of San Carlos. Although Ciudad Quesada is the official name, it is commonly referred to by the area name of San Carlos. Ciudad Quesada is also the most populous city in the canton of San Carlos.
The Clásico centroamericano is a rivalry between the Costa Rica national football team and the Honduras national football team. The rivalry has also presented at club level for having the most successful clubs in Central America in terms of the CONCACAF Champions League.
Ugalde is a Basque surname. Notable people with the surname include:
The 2012 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament was an association football competition used to determine the two participants who would compete at the 2012 Summer Olympics. It was held at BC Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, from January 19–29, 2012.
Costa Rica competed at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico from October 14 to 30, 2011. Costa Rica sent 91 athletes in 18 sports.
Francisco Javier Calvo Quesada is a Costa Rican professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Konyaspor and the Costa Rica national team.
Virginia Grütter was a Costa Rican writer, actress and theatrical director. In the year 2000 she died of respiratory failure.
Evelyn Ugalde Barrantes is a journalist, writer, editor and cultural promoter of Costa Rica. She has received the Joaquín García Monge National Prize for cultural promotion twice for her work, first individually in 2009, and in 2013, along with the rest of the team, as the producer of the cultural program Semicolon.
The consumption of Cannabis in Costa Rica is nominally illegal; however, personal consumption does not carry any criminal penalties. The sale of marijuana, however, can be punished criminally. As of March 2022 medicinal cannabis has been approved.
Yostin Salinas is a Costa-Rican professional footballer who plays for New York Red Bulls II on loan from Sporting San José.
Manfred Alonso Ugalde Arce is a Costa Rican professional footballer who plays as a forward for Dutch club Twente, on loan from Belgian First Division B side Lommel.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Costa Rica is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have spread to Costa Rica on 6 March 2020, after a 49-year-old woman tourist from New York, United States, tested positive for the virus.
Rodrigo Alberto de Jesús Chaves Robles is a Costa Rican politician and economist who has served as the 49th and current President of Costa Rica since May 2022. He was previously Minister of Finance from 2019 to 2020 during the presidency of Carlos Alvarado Quesada.
Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez is a jurist and judge from Costa Rica, and a current judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Before he was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and an ambassador of Costa Rica to the Netherlands.
