Costa Rica Provinces

Costa Rica is a small country with a short list, which makes its provinces the quickest full map on the site to learn. They are the first tier above the cantons, and a province name is what a Costa Rican gives when asked which part of the country a town is in.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: Central Valley, Pacific and Caribbean (unofficial)
In the game: 7 provinces

Start

What you are looking at

The provinces of Costa Rica, each named for its capital except Guanacaste, which is named for a tree. Four of them, San José, Alajuela, Cartago and Heredia, sit in and around the Central Valley and are small. The other three are long strips along the coasts: Guanacaste and Puntarenas down the Pacific side, and Limón alone along the Caribbean.

Cocos Island, far out in the Pacific, belongs to Puntarenas but is not drawn, since it would push the whole map out to sea. It is part of the answer all the same.

Costa Rica has no official grouping above its provinces, so the three groups are the usual way of describing the country, a way to drill it a piece at a time. Each province answers under the same name in Costa Rica Cantons.

How to place one

Start with Limón. It is the only province on the Caribbean, so it is the one you cannot confuse with another.
Take the Pacific strip in two. Guanacaste is the north-west, with the Nicoya Peninsula, and Puntarenas is the long thin province that runs down the rest of the coast to Panama.
Fill in the middle. San José is the centre of the country, with Alajuela to its north-west, Heredia to its north and Cartago to its east.

Every province, by group

Central Valley4 provinces: Alajuela, Cartago, Heredia, San José
Pacific2 provinces: Guanacaste, Puntarenas
Caribbean1 province: Limón

Worked examples

Puntarenas

The long coast

Puntarenas follows the Pacific from the Gulf of Nicoya to the border with Panama, with the mountains of the Talamanca range behind it. It is the largest province by area and the easiest to mistake for a coastline.

Heredia

The smallest of them

Heredia is a small province north of San José, running from the coffee farms of the Central Valley up to the lowlands on the Nicaraguan side. It is easy to lose between Alajuela and Cartago.

Frequently asked questions

How many provinces does Costa Rica have?

Seven. They have been the same seven for decades, though the cantons inside them have kept being added.

Which province is the biggest?

Puntarenas, by area, once its long strip of Pacific coast is counted.

Why is Cocos Island not on the map?

It is a Puntarenas island about 550 km out in the Pacific, and drawing it would shrink the rest of the country to a corner of the screen. It is clipped from both Costa Rica quizzes.

The tier below this one is Costa Rica Cantons, grouped by these provinces. For another small country with a coast on each side, see Ecuador Provinces.