The Tempisque River, or Río Tempisque, is long, located entirely in

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

flowing from the

Guanacaste Cordillera The Cordillera de Guanacaste, also called Guanacaste Cordillera, are a volcanic mountain range in northern Costa Rica near the border with Nicaragua. The mountain range stretches 110 km from northwest to the southeast and contains mostly com ...

near the

Orosí Volcano The Orosí Volcano, in Spanish the , is an inactive volcano in Costa Rica, situated in the Cordillera de Guanacaste near the border with Nicaragua. The area around the volcano is a popular tourist destination, especially for more ecologically ...

and emptying into the

Gulf of Nicoya The Gulf of Nicoya ( es, Golfo de Nicoya) is an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. It separates the Nicoya Peninsula from the mainland of Costa Rica, and encompasses a marine and coastal landscape of wetlands, rocky islands and cliffs. The first Spanish ...

. It passes through the

Palo Verde National Park Palo Verde National Park ( es, Parque Nacional Palo Verde), is a national park of Costa Rica, part of the Arenal Tempisque Conservation Area, that contains much of the area of the valley of the Tempisque River and covers an area of 45,492 acres i ...

and is an important

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

for various species of

crocodile Crocodiles (family (biology), family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to inclu ...

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

iguana ''Iguana'' (, ) is a genus of herbivorous lizards that are native to tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The genus was first described in 1768 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in his bo ...

s and

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

s. The river is heavily silted, limiting navigation to shallow crafts that can cross the muddy flats. Tidal conditions dictate the timing to cross the bar at the river mouth. Historically the Tempisque was used to float logs down to the sea. The logs were gathered at

Chira Island Chira Island is a Costa Rican Pacific island located at the upper end of the Gulf of Nicoya it is also as Chira a district of the Puntarenas canton, in the Puntarenas province of Costa Rica. History Chira district was created on 28 September ...

to be loaded on ships. The Tempisque River Bridge was built linking the

Nicoya Peninsula The Nicoya Peninsula () is a peninsula on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It is divided into two provinces: Guanacaste Province in the north, and the Puntarenas Province in the south. It is located at . It varies from 19 to wide and is approxi ...

to southern Guanacaste and hence significantly cut travel time to San José. It was funded by a gift from the

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

ese government, and opened in November 2002.

References

Rivers of Costa Rica Geography of Guanacaste Province {{CostaRica-river-stub