Costa Rica
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92 free Costa Rica trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Costa Rica trivia questions with answers. Challenge yourself with our comprehensive Costa Rica trivia quiz featuring 50 engaging questions covering the country's rich culture, stunning biodiversity, fascinating history, and geography. Whether you're planning a trip, studying for a class, or simply curious about this Central American gem, this quiz will test your knowledge across various topics. Can you answer all 92 questions correctly?
30 of 92 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Monteverde, one of Costa Rica's best-known ecotourism spots, protects which type of forest?
Cloud forest
Cloud forest: Monteverde sits about 1,400 metres up on the continental divide, where trade winds push moist air into the mountains and keep the trees wrapped in mist.
Q 02What do runners carry in the annual relay marking Central American independence?
A torch
A torch: runners relay it through five countries, from Guatemala to Costa Rica, retracing the route of the courier who carried news of independence south in 1821.
Q 03What greeting-and-farewell phrase embodies the relaxed, positive outlook of Costa Ricans?
Pura Vida
Pura Vida, literally 'pure life', works as hello, goodbye and 'all good'; the phrase is thought to have caught on from a foreign film comedy of the same name, released in 1956.
Q 04Which conical Costa Rican stratovolcano was very active until 2010?
Arenal Volcano
Arenal Volcano had been quiet for centuries when it erupted without warning in July 1968, destroying nearby villages, and it then stayed active until 2010.
Q 05Costa Rica's national bird, a plain brown thrush, was chosen for a song that locals say heralds what?
The rainy season
The rainy season: the yigüirro, or clay-colored thrush, sings as the first rains arrive, which is why Costa Rica passed over its showier toucans and macaws to make it the national bird in 1977.
Q 06What is the official currency of Costa Rica?
Colón
The colón is divided into 100 céntimos, and its notes have nicknames: Costa Ricans call the red 1,000-colón bill 'un rojo' and the 5,000 a 'tucán', after the toucan it once carried.
Q 07Isla Nublar, a fictional island off Costa Rica's Pacific coast, is the setting of which film franchise?
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park: Michael Crichton put his dinosaur park on Isla Nublar, off Costa Rica's Pacific coast, though on screen the island was played by Hawaii's Kauai and Oahu.
Q 08Which word for 'you' do Costa Ricans use even with close friends?
Usted
Usted is the main word for 'you' in Costa Rican Spanish: many speakers use it with close friends and even children, where most of the Spanish-speaking world keeps it for strangers and elders.
Q 09The seven stars on Costa Rica's coat of arms represent what?
Provinces
Provinces: the arms carried five stars from 1848 until 1964, when two more were added because the country by then had seven provinces.
Q 10Which European explorer is credited with the first documented arrival in what is now Costa Rica, on his final voyage?
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean shore on his fourth and final voyage and reported natives wearing gold jewellery, in one account the origin of the name 'rich coast'.
Q 11What is the highest point in Costa Rica?
Cerro Chirripó
Cerro Chirripó rises above 3,800 metres in the Talamanca range; ice covered it during the last ice age and left behind the lakes near its summit.
Q 12To mark the army's abolition, José Figueres struck a fortress wall with what?
Mallet
Mallet: on 1 December 1948 Figueres symbolically broke a wall of the army's headquarters to mark the end of the military, and the 1949 constitution made the ban permanent.
Q 13Which Costa Rican island, about 550 km out in the Pacific, gives the country a maritime border with Ecuador?
Cocos
Cocos Island is steeped in tales of buried pirate treasure; in 1897 Costa Rica even named a German treasure hunter, August Gissler, as its first governor.
Q 21Costa Rica's dry season, which locals call verano, runs from December until which month?
April
April closes the dry 'verano', or summer; the rains that follow are called 'invierno', winter, and their months almost coincide with the Atlantic hurricane season.
Q 22Which city was Costa Rica's capital until 1823, when the seat of government moved to San José?
Cartago
Cartago, founded in 1563, was the capital until its side lost a brief civil war in 1823 and the victors moved the seat of government to their own city.
Q 23As of 2023 Costa Rica got about 95% of its electricity from renewables; which source supplied the most?
Hydropower
Hydropower supplies most of Costa Rica's electricity, thanks to its many rivers and dams, while geothermal plants on the volcanoes, wind and solar add much of the rest.
Q 14What traditional Costa Rican dish of rice and beans fried together is often served for breakfast?
Gallo Pinto
Gallo Pinto means 'spotted rooster', a name said to come from the speckled look of the beans against the rice; Costa Rica and Nicaragua both claim the dish as their own.
Q 15Which crop was Costa Rica's main export for most of the 19th century?
Coffee
Coffee took off once a first cargo was shipped straight to Britain in 1843, and it dominated Costa Rica's exports for the rest of the 19th century.
Q 16Which Costa Rican won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating Central American peace agreements in the 1980s?
Oscar Arias Sánchez
Oscar Arias Sánchez won the 1987 prize for the peace plan the region's presidents signed that August, and he used the prize money to set up the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress.
Q 17Costa Rica's temperatures barely change through the year, so what mainly decides how warm a place there is?
Its altitude
Its altitude: this close to the equator the seasons hardly move the thermometer, so the coastal lowlands average about 27 °C all year while the main highland towns sit near a spring-like 20 °C.
Q 18Which Costa Rican province covers most of the country's Pacific coastline?
Puntarenas
Puntarenas runs along most of the Pacific coast; its port once sent most of the country's Europe-bound harvest the long way round, by Cape Horn.
Q 19Which musical instrument is one of Costa Rica's official national symbols?
Marimba
The marimba was declared Costa Rica's national instrument in 1996 to help revive folk traditions; its ancestors are thought to have reached Central America with enslaved Africans.
Q 20The pre-Columbian Diquís culture of southern Costa Rica is best known for making what?
Stone spheres
Stone spheres: more than 300 are known, and when banana-plantation workers uncovered them in the 1930s, some were blown open with dynamite in the hope of finding gold inside.
Q 24Which Costa Rican goalkeeper won three straight Champions League titles with Real Madrid?
Keylor Navas
Keylor Navas joined Real Madrid after his saves carried Costa Rica to the 2014 World Cup quarter-finals, then won the Champions League there in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Q 25Which tree-dwelling mammal did Costa Rica's legislature declare a national symbol in 2021?
Sloth
Sloth: lawmakers named both of the country's species, the two-toed and the three-toed, national symbols in July 2021 to help protect them and their habitat.
Q 26What does Costa Rica celebrate each 15 September?
Independence Day
Independence Day marks 15 September 1821, when Central America's leaders broke with colonial rule; Costa Rica then sat inside a regional federation and only went its own way in 1838.
Q 27Which Costa Rican province is known for its Pacific beaches, including the surf town of Tamarindo?
Guanacaste
Guanacaste left Nicaragua to join Costa Rica after a plebiscite in the 1820s, an annexation the country still marks with a national holiday every 25 July.
Q 28Costa Rica is often cited as the first tropical country to stop and reverse what?
Deforestation
Deforestation: after decades of clearing, Costa Rica began paying landowners in 1996 to protect and replant trees, and its woodland has been growing back since.
Q 29Into which gulf does the Tempisque River of northwestern Costa Rica empty?
Gulf of Nicoya
The Gulf of Nicoya receives the Tempisque beside Palo Verde National Park; since 2003 the river's estuary has been crossed by a bridge that Taiwan paid for and designed.
Q 30In the Boruca 'Dance of the Little Devils', whom do the devils fight?
Spanish conquistadors
Spanish conquistadors, played by a mock bull, are the enemy: the masked 'devils' stand for the Boruca themselves, and the three-day festival ends with the devils victorious.