 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Maps |
| |
Located where the tenuous land bridge separating the two American continents is almost pinched out and the Pacific and Caribbean oceans almost meet, Costa Rica lies at the northern point of this apex: a pivotal region separating two oceans and two continents vastly different in character. There are few places in the world where the forces of nature so actively interplay.
Distinct climatic patterns emerge; the great land masses and their offshore cousins, the Cocos and the Caribbean plates, jostle and shove on another, triggering earthquakes and spawning sometimes cataclysmic volcanic eruptions; and the flora and fauna of the North and South American realms, as well as those of the Caribbean and the Pacific, come together and play with the forces of evolution. The result is an incredible diversity of terrain, flora and fauna, and weather concentrated in a country barely bigger than the state of New Hampshire. |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
Nicaragua, approximately the size of New York State, is the largest country in Central America. The country covers a total area of 129,494 square kilometers (120,254 square kilometers of which are land area) and contains a diversity of climates and terrains. The country's physical geography divides it into three major zones: Pacific lowlands; the wetter, cooler central highlands, and the Caribbean lowlands.
The Pacific lowlands extend about 75 kilometers inland from the Pacific coast. Most of the area is flat, except for a line of young volcanoes, many of which are still active, running between the Golfo de Fonseca and Lago de Nicaragua. These peaks lie just west of a large crustal fracture or structural rift that forms a long, narrow depression passing southeast across the isthmus from the Golfo de Fonseca to the Río San Juan. |
The rift is occupied in part by the largest freshwater lakes in Central America: Lago de Managua (56 kilometers long and 24 kilometers wide) and Lago de Nicaragua (about 160 kilometers long and 75 kilometers wide).
These two lakes are joined by the Rio Tipitapa, which flows south into Lago de Nicaragua. Lago de Nicaragua in turn drains into the Rio San Juan (the boundary between Nicaragua and Costa Rica), which flows through the southern part of the rift lowlands to the Caribbean Sea. The valley of the Rio San Juan forms a natural passageway close to sea level across the Nicaraguan isthmus from the Caribbean Sea to Lago de Nicaragua and the rift. From the southwest edge of Lago de Nicaragua, it is only nineteen kilometers to the Pacific Ocean. This route was considered as a possible alternative to the Panama Canal at various times in the past. |
| |
See Frequently asked Questions about Nicaragua.
Read more about Nicaragua at the US Library of Congress Federal Research Division.
|
| |
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
