Provinces of Costa Rica

The provinces (Spanish: provincias) are administrative parts of Costa Rica as in other countries.

The Constitution of Costa Rica says, in its Article 168, "For Public Administration purposes, the national territory is divided into provinces, these into cantons and cantons into districts."^[1]

As of 2016^[update], there are 7 provinces (provincias), 81 cantons (cantones), and 473 districts (districtos).^[2]

History

The Law No. 36 of 7 December 1848 divided the country, for the first time, in provinces, cantons and districts, and created 6 provinces:

San José
Alajuela
Cartago
Heredia
Guanacaste

The law made Puntarenas as comarca, an old category that does not exist any more. Puntarenas was made a province in 1858. In 1870, Limón was made a comarca with the eastern part of the Cartago province; in 1902, Limón was made a province.

List of provinces

Province	ISO 3166-2	Capital	Area^[2] (km²)	Population^[2] (2011)	Density
San José	CR-SJ	San José	4,965.90	1,404,242	282.8
Alajuela	CR-A	Alajuela	9,757.53	848,146	86.9
Cartago	CR-C	Cartago	3,124.67	490,903	157.1
Heredia	CR-H	Heredia	2,656.98	433,677	163.2
Guanacaste	CR-G	Liberia	10,140.71	326,953	32.2
Puntarenas	CR-P	Puntarenas	11,265.69	410,929	36.5
Limón	CR-L	Puerto Limón	9,188.52	386,862	42.1

Related pages

Cantons of Costa Rica

References

↑ "CONSTITUCION POLITICA DE LA REPUBLICA DE COSTA RICA 1949". constitution.org. Archived from the original on 17 June 2017. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 "Anuario Estadístico 2012 - 2013" (PDF) (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INEC). June 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 November 2016. Retrieved 18 December 2016.