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 ...
s,
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 ...
s,
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
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