Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- San José
- Region
- Americas, Central America
- Population
- 5,152,950 (2025)
- Area
- 51,100 km²
- Currency
- Costa Rican colón (CRC)
- Languages
- Spanish, English
- Calling code
- +506
- Internet domain
- .cr
- ISO codes
- CR, CRI, 188
- Time zone
- UTC-6:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ##### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Costa Rica covers about 51,100 square kilometres. By area it ranks 131st among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Bosnia and Herzegovina and a little larger than Slovakia. It shares a land border with 2 neighbours: Nicaragua, Panama. Its centre lies at about 10° north, 84° west, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 5.15 million people live in Costa Rica (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 127th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure. On average there are 101 people to each square kilometre. About 80 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 81 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Spanish, English. A person from Costa Rica is called Costa Rican.
Money and economy
The currency is the Costa Rican colón (code CRC, symbol ₡). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 103 billion (2025), which is about US$ 19,970 for each person (2025).
Time
Costa Rica uses one time zone, UTC-6:00 (America/Costa Rica). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| San José | 335,007 |
| Limón | 63,081 |
| Alajuela | 47,494 |
| Liberia | 45,380 |
| Paraíso | 39,702 |
| Puntarenas | 35,650 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Central America
Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.