This statistic shows the biggest cities in Costa Rica in 2020. In 2020, approximately 1.45 million people lived in San José , making it the biggest city in Costa Rica.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the San Jose, Costa Rica metro area from 1950 to 2025.

In 2022, San José and Alajuela were the most populated provinces in Costa Rica, with over a million inhabitants each. The Central American country has a high concentration of the population in the urban area known as Central Valley.

In the second quarter of 2021, the average hotel room price in Costa Rica's capital reached a little over 132 U.S. dollars. The Central American country is one of the most competitive tourism markets in Latin America.

Unemployment Rate in Costa Rica increased to 7.50 percent in the first quarter of 2025 from 6.90 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024. This dataset provides - Costa Rica Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health shock, but the secondary economic shock is equally formidable. Access to timely, policy-relevant information on the awareness of, responses to and impacts of the health situation and related restrictions are critical to effectively design, target and evaluate programme and policy interventions. This research project investigates the main socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic on UNHCR people of concern (PoC) – and nationals where possible – in terms of access to information, services and livelihoods opportunities. Two regions were targeted: the Greater Metropolitan Area and the Northern region. Two rounds of data collection took place for this survey, with the purpose of following up with the respondents.

Analysis unit

Household

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

UNHCR’s ProGres database in Costa Rica contains 47,491 registered individuals of which 30,494 are active. Of the 30,494 active individuals registered in the database, 22,487 have a known location as well as a listed primary phone number. Phone penetration rates are high among the PoC population in Costa Rica with 9 out of 10 families having a phone number registered in the ProGres database. This list constitutes just over 22% of the total estimated PoC population living in Costa Rica. As such, this final list serves as the first-choice sampling frame for the phone survey. In addition, two regions of Costa Rica were identified for targeted sampling of PoC following discussion with the UNHCR country team and regional bureau and based on information captured in the ProGres database. These include the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM, for its acronym in Spanish) inclusive of the capital San Jose and the Northern region. Moreover, it was identified that understanding differences across sub-groups based on country of origin was essential for operational needs. In the GAM the biggest groups are Nicaraguans (67%), Venezuelans (13%) and Cubans (11%). Alternatively, in the North Nicaraguans represent 90% of the PoC population. Based on the above, a sampling strategy was proposed based on four separate strata in order to adequately represent the regions and sub-groups of interest: 1.)GAM – Nicaragua stratum: Nicaraguan PoC in GAM; 2.) GAM – Venezuela stratum: Venezuelan PoC in GAM; 3.) GAM – Cuba stratum: Cuban PoC in GAM; and 4.) North – Nicaragua stratum: Nicaraguan PoC in the North.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Telephone Interview [cati]

Research instrument

Questionnaire contained the following sections: consent, knowledge, behaviour, access, employment, income, food security, concerns, resilience, networks, demographics

During 2024, Costa Rica recorded almost ****** crimes and around ** percent of them were registered in the province of San Jose. In 2024, Costa Rica registered under *** homicide victims.

The history of domestic species and of their wild ancestors is not a simple one, and feral processes can clarify key aspects of this history, including the adaptive processes triggered by new environments. Here, we provide a comprehensive genomic study of Isla del Coco (Costa Rica) feral pigs, a unique population that was allegedly founded by two individuals and has remained isolated since 1793. Using SNP arrays and genome sequencing, we show that Cocos pigs are hybrids between Asian and European pigs, as are modern international pig breeds. This conclusively shows that, as early as the 18th century, British vessels were loading crossbred pigs in Great Britain and transporting them overseas. We find that the Y chromosome has Asian origin, which has not been reported in any international pig breed. Chinese haplotypes seem to have been transmitted independently between Cocos and other pig breeds, suggesting independent introgression events and a complex pattern of admixing. Although data are compatible with a founder population of N = 2, variability levels are as high in Cocos pigs as in international pig breeds (~1.9 SNPs/kb) and higher than in European wild boars or local breeds (~1.7 SNPs/kb). Nevertheless, we also report a 10-Mb region with a marked decrease in variability across all samples that contains four genes (CPE, H3F3C, SC4MOL and KHL2) previously identified as highly differentiated between wild and domestic pigs. This work therefore illustrates how feral population genomic studies can help to resolve the history of domestic species and associated admixture events.

According to a study that surveyed startup companies based in Central America, San José, the capital of Costa Rica, had the startup ecosystem with the best score in terms of size, quality, and business climate. Overall, San José's startup ecosystem was rated with 0.74 points, of which 0.52 were awarded in the area of business environment. Panama City received the second best startup ecosystem score, at a total of 0.41 points.

As of 2023 in Costa Rica, the province of San Jose, which includes the capital, recorded the highest number of births in the country, with slightly over 14,000 births. This was followed by the provinces of Alajuela and Limón.

In 2023, in Colombia, the province with the highest number of same-sex marriages was the capital, San Jose, with 174 marriages for male-male couples and 153 for female-female marriages.

Alajuela, Heradia, and Downtown San Jose were Costa Rica's largest industrial and logistics real estate markets. In the first quarter of 2024, Alajuela had about 1.8 million square meters of the total 6.3 million square meters of the country's industrial and logistics real estate inventory. Meanwhile, Heredia was the warehouse market with the expensive rent.

In 2023, the number of marriages for couples in Costa Rica was highest in the capital, San Jose, with 7,155 marriages. This was followed by the regions of Alajuela and Heredia.

Close to 2.4 million international tourists arrived in Costa Rica in 2022, registering an annual growth of over 74 percent. However, this figure was still around 25 below the peak of 2019, when the Central American country recorded more than three million visitor arrivals.

Expenditure on trips to Costa Rica

The total visitor spending in the Central American country, including the cost of transportation, surpassed 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. With an average of 1.5 thousand U.S. dollars per trip, the expenditure of international tourists played a substantial role in the Costa Rican service exports, contributing to nearly one-fifth in 2021.

How do tourists choose to travel in Costa Rica?

Between January 2019 and December 2022, the month which witnessed the most significant number of tourist arrivals was January 2020, surpassing 358 thousand. In 2022, December emerged as the most favored month by tourists, with over 260 thousand arrivals.

Regarding transport modes, the Central American country saw almost 1.3 million international tourist arrivals by air that year, while the number of visitor arrivals by water or road was under 80 thousand. Moreover, approximately 870 thousand tourist arrivals in Costa Rica originated in the United States, making it the primary contributor to the country's tourism industry.

In 2023, the province of San Jose, which serves as the capital, recorded the highest number of deaths in Costa Rica, with approximately 9,850 cases. This was followed by the districts of Alajuela and Cartago.

Heredia experienced the highest average asking rent for class A offices in Costa Rica in the second quarter of 2023. Heredia reported an average monthly rent of 20 U.S. dollars per square meter. Downtown San Jose and West San Jose also had rents higher than the average for all markets observed. On the other hand, Alajuela offered the most affordable commercial office spaces with the lowest asking rent among all districts, coming in at just 18 U.S. dollars per square meter.

This statistic presents the leading banks in Costa Rica as of June 2017, based on profits. Banco de Costa Rica led the ranking amounting to 95.3 million U.S. dollars, followed by BAC San José with 86.4 million dollars.

As of June 2021, 350 Costa Rican startups had raised around 80.7 million U.S. dollars in investments. Roughly 95 percent of the capital raised, some 76.9 million dollars, went to firms based in the San José province. These funds were raised in a total of 82 investment rounds, with capital commitments from 56 different investors.