The July 1989 census recorded a
population of 2.92 million, more than half of whom live in the
Central Valley. Approximately 275,000 live in the
capital of costa rica San José. Fifty-one percent of the nation's population is classed as urban. The country's annual
population growth rate is currently 2.3% and gradually falling. As recently as the 1960s the rate was a staggering 3.8% per annum, a figure no other country in the world could then match. The impressive decline in recent decades has likewise been matched by few other countries.
All the municipalities of the
Meseta Central have gained agricultural migrants for whom there is simply no more room. Hence, emigration from the Meseta Central in recent decades has taken
people in all directions, assisted by government incentives. The most attractive areas of settlement in the past 35 years have been on the Nicoya lowlands on the drier part of the Pacific coast, on the northern lowlands, and on the alluvial soils of the Valle de El General in the south. The Pan-American Highway has attracted settlers, and the border between Panama and Costa Rica is now quite densely settled, with colonists from Italy as well as the Meseta Central grafted onto the local population.
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posted by capital of costa rica : 3:11 PM
