Costa Rica: Language & Religion

Spanish is the official language of Costa Rica. It is spoken by approximately 90 percent of the population as a first language, a legacy of Spanish colonization beginning in the sixteenth century. Several indigenous languages persist in smaller communities, most belonging to the Chibchan language family, including Bribri, Cabécar, Maléku, Boruca, and Térraba, though many have few remaining speakers. Costa Rica's Caribbean coast is also home to an English-based Creole spoken by descendants of Jamaican immigrants who arrived in the nineteenth century to work on railroad and banana plantation projects. Smaller immigrant communities, including Chinese and Mennonite settlers, have introduced Cantonese and Plautdietsch, a German dialect, into the country's linguistic mix.

Roman Catholicism holds a unique legal status in Costa Rica: it is the only country in the Americas that constitutionally establishes Catholicism as its official state religion. This designation, enshrined in the 1949 constitution, provides for state support of the Catholic Church and has historically made Catholic instruction a standard part of the public school curriculum. At the same time, the same constitution guarantees freedom of religion for all residents, and the state religion's practical influence over public life has diminished considerably in recent decades even as its constitutional standing has remained largely unchanged.

Roughly half of Costa Ricans today identify as Roman Catholic, while evangelical and other Protestant denominations account for close to a third of the population, reflecting a broader regional trend of Protestant growth. A significant and growing share of Costa Ricans report no religious affiliation at all. Smaller religious communities, including Jews, Muslims, and followers of other faiths, also make up part of the country's religious landscape, contributing to a society that is officially Catholic but functionally pluralistic.