It’s time to get out your globe! You need to know about the imaginary lines on globes and maps. These lines are called lines of latitude and longitude, and they tell a pilot or ship’s captain exactly where in the world a certain place is located. Basically, latitude lines (also called parallels) are the horizontal lines on your map. Lines of longitude (also called meridians) are the vertical lines that run from the North Pole to the South Pole. This mapping system is written in degrees and uses the symbol °. Get ready to travel the world!
National Hispanic Heritage Month in the U.S. begins on September 15, a date chosen because five Latin American countries –– Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua –– celebrate the anniversary of their independence from Spain on this date. On your globe, find longitude 84º E and latitude 10º N to locate the country of Costa Rica in Central America. Slightly smaller than West Virginia, it is covered by a rugged mountain chain that stretches from the northwest to the southeast. These mountains include over 100 volcanic cones, and a few of the highest mountain peaks are active volcanoes, which means they may still erupt, or explode. Costa Rica is bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Around 75% of Costa Rica’s 4.2 million people live on a plateau, or a flat area between the mountains.
Costa Rica was a Spanish colony until 1821. On September 15 of that year, Costa Rica and several of Spain's other Central American colonies declared their independence. The official language of Costa Rica is Spanish, though a few people speak Creole, a Jamaican dialect of English.
When Spanish explorers arrived in the early 1500s, they believed that gold and other precious metals were mined in the area, and they named the land Costa Rica, or “rich coast.” But the explorers discovered very little in the way of riches; instead, the rich volcanic soil of Costa Rica is its most valuable resource. About 25% of Costa Rica's workers farm or ranch for a living. Coffee, pineapples and bananas are major export crops; beef cattle, cacao (seeds used to make chocolate), corn, rice and sugar cane are also important agricultural products. Since the late 1990s, computer chips manufactured near San José have become one of Costa Rica's leading exports.
Ecotourism is also an important industry. In addition to its active volcanoes, Costa Rica has beautiful beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs, a coral reef filled with brilliantly colored fish and tropical rain forests full of monkeys and beautiful birds. In fact, Costa Rica has 29 national parks! There are many guidebooks, in both Spanish and English, about Costa Rica’s national parks, and nearly everyone in Costa Rica can read them. This small country has one of the highest literacy rates, or the number of people over 15 who can read and write, in Latin America –– 96%!
Sources: The World Factbook prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency; “Costa Rica,” World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia 2004; “Republic of Costa Rica,” www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/costa_rica.htm.
