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| Caño Negro National Wildlife Refuge |
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This nearly 10,000 hectare refuge is important as a wintering site for migrant waterfowl, as well as a year-round habitat for resident wetland species. From October to April, when the migrant birds are at the refuge, the variety of species and sheer quantity of individuals creates a spectacle that even non-birdwatchers will marvel at. |
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Undisputedly one of Costa Rica's foremost tourist attractions, the highly eruptive Arenal Volcano is the centerpiece of this new national park declared in October of 1994. In addition to including in the national park system what is currently one of the world's most active volcanoes.
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Las Baulas Marine National Park |
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Another newcomer to the list of Costa Rican national parks, Las Baulas was declared to protect two important nesting beaches for the Giant Leatherback Sea Turtle, as well as offshore areas where these large marine reptiles spend their days during the breeding season. |
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Poás Volcano National Park |
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Like the other volcanoes in the Central Volcanic Cordillera, the silhouette of Poás Volcano as seen from the Central Valley gives no hint of the power and pent-up fury below the surface. But once at the summit and standing on the crater's rim, it becomes easier to understand the forces that have shaped this region of the planet.
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| Irazú Volcano National Park |
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At 3,432 meters above sea level, Irazú Volcano is the highest point in the Central Volcanic Cordillera. The gently sloping southern flank with its patchwork pattern of potatoes, cabbages, and other vegetable crops, replaced by bucolic dairy farms at higher elevations, belies the violent past of this sleeping behemoth that looms above the city of Cartago.
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Guayabo National Monument |
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This is Costa Rica's premier archeological site. Although not on a par with the large-scale pre-Columbian architecture found in some other parts of the New World, Guayabo offers a fascinating insight into the lives of the people who once populated the region.
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One of the first national parks to be declared, Santa Rosa is important for its history, geology, and ecology. The old hacienda buildings have been preserved as a cultural and historical museum, especially commemorating the Battle of Santa Rosa in 1856.
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Known as the home of Costa Rica's highest peak, Mount Chirripó, images of stunted alpine vegetation and bare rock are most often associated with this park. Nonetheless, the 50,150 hectares that comprise the park actually contain a variety of other fascinating ecosystems and on the 10-hour hike to the shelters on top of the mountain one passes through lower montane rain forest and montane rain forest, before finally emerging into subalpine rain paramo.
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Braulio Carrillo National Park |
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Consisting of 44,099 hectares of virgin rain forest, this is one of Costa Rica's largest national parks. Although the park extends into portions of four different provinces, most visitors enter via the highway from San Jose.
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The creation of this park in 1970 gave much needed protection to one of the region's most important and unique natural resources: a 22-km. stretch of shoreline that serves as the principal nesting site throughout the western half of the Caribbean Sea for the Atlantic Green Sea Turtle.
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| Manuel Antonio National Park |
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With a mere 682 ha. of land area, Manuel Antonio is one of the smallest of Costa Rica's national parks. However, with its idyllic beaches, excellent wildlife viewing opportunities, relative ease of access, and good surrounding infrastructure, this is one of the country's most visited parks.
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Cocos Island National Park |
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All alone in the Pacific Ocean, this 2,400 hectare island of ancient volcanic rock rises to a height of 634 meters and is covered with luxuriant rain forest. Isolated as it is, few species of plants and animals have managed to colonize its shores over the ages, and of those that have, many of evolved into distinct forms from those that originally reached the island. As on islands everywhere, this process has resulted in the creation of endemics -- species found nowhere else in the world.
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