Costa Rica's Other National Parks in the Order They First Gained Protection

Barra Honda was established in 1974 and protects a limestone cave system beneath Barra Honda Peak. By 2005 some 42 caves had been found, including the Santa Ana cave, which drops about 240 meters underground and shelters blind salamanders and fish adapted to darkness.

Tenorio was established in 1976 and expanded in 1995 to take in Tenorio Volcano itself. It is known for the Rio Celeste, whose blue water comes from the scattering of light by suspended mineral particles, and for its thermal springs, geysers and waterfalls.

Carara began as a biological reserve on 27 April 1978 and became a national park in November 1998. It protects the basin of the Rio Tarcoles, with 432 confirmed bird species, the country's largest population of Central American crocodiles and fifteen pre-Columbian archaeological sites.

Barbilla was first protected as a biological reserve in 1982 and upgraded to a national park in 1998. Its lowland rainforest and cloud forest on the eastern slopes of the Talamanca range hold more than 350 recorded bird species, and the Indigenous Cabecar people live within and around it.

La Cangreja was protected from 1987 as the Cerro de la Cangreja Protected Zone and redesignated a national park in 2002. Its forests, about 4,600 acres in the Puriscal canton, shelter more than 300 bird species including scarlet macaws and toucans.

La Amistad was formally established on 6 September 1988 and is jointly managed by Costa Rica and Panama. At about 4,010 square kilometers it is the largest nature reserve in Central America, it includes Cerro Chirripo, the highest point in Costa Rica, and its Talamanca portion has had World Heritage status since 1983.

Guanacaste was created by decree in 1989, partly through the advocacy of ecologist Daniel Janzen, and formally established on 9 July 1991. It was designed as a corridor letting species move seasonally between dry forest and rain forest, and it holds the El Pedregal petroglyphs dated between 500 BC and 1500 AD.

Piedras Blancas began in 1991 as the Esquinas Sector of Corcovado National Park and became an independent park in 1999, after logging was curbed by more rangers and land purchases by conservation groups. Its forest and Golfo Dulce beaches hold at least 96 mammal species, 53 of them bats.

Diria was first protected as a zone by presidential decree in 1991, became a national wildlife refuge two years later and was declared a national park in 2004. Its tropical and cloud forests shelter howler monkeys, anteaters and peccaries alongside more than 140 recorded bird species.

Juan Castro Blanco was established on 22 April 1992 and covers about 145 square kilometers with three volcanoes: Platanar, Porvenir and El Viejo. Its cloud forests act as a watershed for nearby communities and hold over 200 documented orchid species.

Los Quetzales was established in 2006 under Decree 32981-MINAE and takes its name from the resplendent quetzal of its cloud forest. It covers about 50 square kilometers, part of it lies within the Turberas de Talamanca Ramsar site, and its facilities are limited to a small ranger station and a mountain road.

Miravalles, created on 5 June 2019 as Costa Rica's twenty ninth national park, ends the trail. About 43 square kilometers were taken from the former Miravalles Protected Zone around Miravalles Volcano, whose last recorded activity was steam venting in 1946.