Costa Rica has 1,684 orchid species, a dry-forest tree whose whole population flowers nine days after a cold snap, and a white flower that Costa Ricans scramble with egg at Easter. Here is the real list.
Nobody actually knows how many Americans and Canadians live in Costa Rica — the official figures differ by a factor of six and the 2022 census reached only 60.7% of homes. But how Costa Ricans feel about them has been measured.
Home education has no legal recognition in Costa Rica. The law requires enrolment in a teaching centre, and there is no ministry pathway for a child aged six to thirteen educated at home.
The bars are not a measure of danger. Residential burglary has fallen 34% since 2019 — the grilles exist so the windows can stay open all year.
Sunset in Costa Rica falls between about 5.11pm and 6.02pm every day of the year. Day length varies by only 69 minutes, and the clocks have not changed since 1992.
Costa Rica has twelve national holidays, nine with obligatory pay. The rule moving holidays to Mondays expired at the end of 2024 — most guides still get this wrong.
Selling sex by an adult is not a criminal offence in Costa Rica, but it is unregulated rather than legal — and the law on minors is severe, age-gap based and recently strengthened.
Every 2 August close to two million people walk to Cartago. What the day commemorates, how the pilgrimage works, and why it is a holiday where pay is not obligatory.
Medicinal cannabis and hemp are legal under Ley 10113. Recreational use is not, home growing sits inside the trafficking offence, and there is no permitted possession quantity.
Costa Rica banned sport hunting in 2012 through the first citizen-initiated law in its history. Subsistence and control hunting remain lawful, and sport fishing is unaffected.
