Costa Rica is known for its "green" environment and maintains its ranking of 5th in the world on the Envrionmental Performance index. Costa Rica also holds the title as the "greenest" country in the world. Its government is a Democratic republic, split up in to seven provinces, further subdivided in to 81 cantons. Each canton is run by a mayor that is electorally voted in to office every four years. the 81 cantons are then split up in to 421 districts. Something very unique about the Costa Rican government is that they abolished their army permanently in 1949. the religion of Costa Rica consists of 90% Catholics. Though their country is consumed of mainly one religion, they are very lax on religious beliefs. A very important religious holiday is Holy week ( the week before Easter). Many Costa Ricans used this week to celebrate and vacation. The relationship between the state and church is very weak, or secular, but, every village, no matter how small, has a church facing east. The national language of Costa Rica is Spanish, though English is also used quite frequently.
