Costa Rica
POPULATION 3,834,934
ROMAN CATHOLIC 70.1 percent
PROTESTANT 18 percent
OTHER RELIGIONS 1.8 percent
NONRELIGIOUS 10.1 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
Costa Rica is a predominantly Spanish-speaking county located in Central America. Largely mountainous, it lies between Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south. To the west is the Pacific Ocean, and to the east is the Caribbean Sea.
At the time of the Spanish conquest, beginning in the early sixteenth century, Costa Rica was inhabited by several ethnolinguistic groups: the Chorotegas on the north Pacific coast, the Huétares in the Central Valley and on the Caribbean coast, and the Bruncas in the southern region along the Pacific. More than half the Indians died during the 1500s because of disease or warfare with the Spaniards. By 1611 the entire Costa Rican population was reported to be 15,000, which included Indians, Spaniards, and mixed race, called mestizos.
During the Spanish colonial period (1519–1821), Roman Catholicism dominated the social and religious life of Costa Rica. Beginning in the mid-1800s, however, indentured servants were imported from mainland China to provide labor for the coffee industry, and these workers took their ancient beliefs with them to the New World. During the late 1800s additional Chinese laborers arrived in Costa Rica, along with some East Indians and many Afro-American immigrants from the British West Indies, to help with railroad construction and the development of the banana industry on the Caribbean coast.
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