Guanacaste
Guanacaste is a province in Costa Rica. This region is covered by dry tropical forest, which makes it popular among tourists looking to escape the humidity found in most of Central America.| Tap on a place to explore it |
Photo: Andrés Berrocal Soto, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Essential Destinations
Top destinations include Liberia and Rincón de la Vieja Volcano National Park.
Liberia
Liberia is the capital city of the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. It is located about 220 km Northwest San Jose. After Mexico's War of Independence from Spain, the settlement of Guanacaste, as Liberia was known then, transitioned from being a town in the Partido de Nicoya of the Federal Republic of Central America to being part of Nicaragua and then Costa Rica.
Rincón de la Vieja Volcano National Park
Photo: Kobold66, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Rincón de la Vieja Volcano National Park is a park of 14,161 hectares covering a dry tropical forest region in the provinces of Guanacaste and Alajuela, centered around the volcano, Rincón de la Vieja, and the surrounding volcanic and natural features.
Santa Rosa National Park
Santa Rosa National Park is a large national park in the Guanacaste province of western Costa Rica. It preserves a large area of dry tropical forest and together with Guanacaste National Park and other neighboring national parks, provides a large contiguous protected natural area as suitable habitat with sufficient space for large cats, such as the jaguar and puma.
Destinations to Discover
Explore places such as Tenorio Volcano National Park and Playas del Coco.
Tenorio Volcano National Park
Photo: Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.0.
The Tenorio Volcano National Park straddles the border between Guanacaste province and Alajuela province of Costa Rica, it is home to the beautiful Rio Celeste.
Playas del Coco
Photo: Pacificorealty, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Playas del Coco is a small beach town in Guanacaste province, on the North Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. It is close to several beaches including Ocotal, Playa Hermosa and Playa Panama.
Tilarán
Photo: Richie Diesterheft, CC BY 2.0.
Tilarán is a small town in Guanacaste, Costa Rica on the shores of Lake Arenal. The town is a peaceful, friendly place to visit and is increasingly popular for aquatic activities, especially windsurfing on the lake.
Palo Verde National Park
Palo Verde National Park is a large protected natural area in Guanacaste in northwest Costa Rica. The park preserves critical habitat for a large number of species, particularly aquatic bird species who nest in the park's swamps, mangroves, a large lake, and an island in the Río Tempisque.
Las Baulas de Guanacaste National Marine Park
Photo: Mariordo, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Las Baulas de Guanacaste National Marine Park is a park that's 95% underwater and is a critical nesting habitat for leatherback sea turtles. The park is on the Pacific coast in Guanacaste.
Brasilito
Playa Brasilito is a town in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Located on the north Pacific Coast 3 km south of Flamingo Beach and 20 minutes north of Tamarindo Beach Brasilito was a small fishing village which has become a budget location to stay on the Gold Coast.Barra Honda National Park
Photo: Shamhain, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Barra Honda National Park is in the northern Nicoya Peninsula in Guanacaste province, Costa Rica. The park protects a densely forested mountain but is most famous for its extensive underground world of limestone caverns, formed by water erosion over millions of years.
Nosara
Photo: Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Nosara is a city in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. This town has access to several great beaches and retains "Blue Flag" status as an environmentally clean area.
Playa Carrillo
Photo: Jackiemora01, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Playa Carrillo is a postcard-perfect beach in Costa Rica's Guanacaste province, next to the small fishing village of Puerto Carrillo.
Diria National Park
Diria National Park is in the Nicoya Peninsula region of Guanacaste province in Costa Rica. It's an inland park with lowland forests teeming with wildlife and providing some great hiking trails within an hour drive of several of Costa Rica's most popular beach resorts.Playa Grande
Photo: Cal Wolfe, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Playa Grande is a town in the Guanacaste Province of Costa Rica, just north of Tamarindo. It comprises most of Parque Nacional Marino Laus Baulas, the most important nesting site in Central America for the giant leatherback sea turtle.
Photo: Michael Boyd, CC BY 3.0.
Guanacaste
- Type: province of Costa Rica with 354,000 residents
- Description: province of Costa Rica
- Also known as: “Guanacaste Province” and “Guanacasti”
- Location: Costa Rica, Central America, North America
- View on OpenStreetMap
This page is based on GeoNames, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikivoyage.
We’d love your help improving our open data sources. Thank you for contributing.
Satellite Map
Discover Guanacaste from above in high-definition satellite imagery.
In Other Languages
From Arabic to Wu Chinese—“Guanacaste” goes by many names.
- Arabic: “غواناكاسته”
- Armenian: “Գուանակաստե”
- Asturian: “Guanacaste”
- Asturian: “provincia de Guanacaste”
- Basque: “Guanacaste probintzia”
- Basque: “Guanacaste”
- Bengali: “গুনাস্যাচ প্রদেশ”
- Bulgarian: “Гуанакасте”
- Catalan: “Guanacaste”
- Catalan: “província de Guanacaste”
- Catalan: “Província de Guanacaste”
- Cebuano: “Provincia de Guanacaste”
- Chinese: “Guanacaste Séng”
- Chinese: “瓜納卡斯特省”
- Chinese: “瓜纳卡斯特省”
- Croatian: “Guanacaste, provincija”
- Croatian: “Guanacaste”
- Czech: “Guanacaste”
- Danish: “Guanacaste”
- Dutch: “Guanacaste”
- Dutch: “Provincie Guanacaste”
- Esperanto: “Guanacaste”
- Esperanto: “Gvanakasto”
- Esperanto: “Provinco Guanacaste”
- Finnish: “Guanacasten maakunta”
- French: “Guanacaste”
- Galician: “Provincia de Guanacaste”
- Georgian: “გუანაკასტეს პროვინცია”
- German: “CR-G”
- German: “Guanacaste”
- German: “Provinz Guanacaste”
- Greek: “Γκουανακάστε”
- Greek: “Επαρχία Γκουανακάστε”
- Gujarati: “ગુઆનાકાસ્ટ પ્રાંત”
- Hebrew: “גואנאקאסטה”
- Hindi: “गुनाकास्ट प्रांत”
- Hungarian: “Guanacaste tartomány”
- Indonesian: “Provinsi Guanacaste”
- Italian: “Guanacaste”
- Italian: “provincia di Guanacaste”
- Italian: “Provincia di Guanacaste”
- Japanese: “グアナカステ州”
- Kannada: “ಗುವಾನಾಕಸ್ಟ್ ಪ್ರಾಂತ್ಯ”
- Korean: “과나카스테주”
- Kotava: “CostarikaGuanacasteWinka”
- Ladino: “Guanacaste”
- Latvian: “Gvanakastes province”
- Lithuanian: “Guanakastės provincija”
- Lithuanian: “Gvanakastė”
- Lithuanian: “Gvanakastės provincija”
- Malay: “Guanacaste Province”
- Marathi: “गुनाकास्ट प्रांत”
- Marathi: “ग्वानाकास्ते प्रांत”
- Min Nan Chinese: “Guanacaste Séng”
- Northern Frisian: “Guanacaste”
- Northern Sami: “Guanacaste”
- Norwegian Bokmål: “Guanacaste”
- Norwegian: “Guanacaste”
- Persian: “استان گواناکاسته”
- Polish: “Guanacaste”
- Portuguese: “Guanacaste”
- Portuguese: “Província de Guanacaste”
- Quechua: “Guanacaste pruwinsya”
- Quechua: “Guanascate pruwinsya”
- Romanian: “Provincia Guanacaste”
- Russian: “Гуанакасте”
- Serbian: “Gvanakaste”
- Serbian: “Гванакасте”
- Serbo-Croatian: “Guanacaste”
- Sinhala: “ගයනකස්ටේ පළාත”
- Slovenian: “CR-G”
- Slovenian: “Provinca Guanacaste”
- Slovenian: “Provincia de Guanacaste”
- Spanish: “Guanacaste”
- Spanish: “Provincia de Guanacaste”
- Swedish: “Guanacaste”
- Tamil: “குணஸாஸ்ட் மாகாணம்”
- Telugu: “గువానాకాస్ట్ ప్రావిన్స్”
- Telugu: “గువానాకాస్ట్ రాష్ట్రభాగం”
- Thai: “จังหวัดกัวนากัสเต”
- Turkish: “Guanacaste Province”
- Turkish: “Guanacaste”
- Ukrainian: “Гуанакасте”
- Urdu: “گواناکاستے صوبہ”
- Vietnamese: “Guanacaste”
- Vietnamese: “Tỉnh Guanacaste”
- Welsh: “Talaith Guanacaste”
- Western Armenian: “Կուանաքասթէ”
- Western Panjabi: “صوبہ گوناکاسٹ”
- Wu Chinese: “瓜纳卡斯特省”
- “Cuauhnacaztli”
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About Mapcarta. Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, except for photos, directions, and the map. Description text is based on the Wikivoyage page “Guanacaste”. Photo: Wikimedia, CC0.