Térraba River (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

: ''Río Grande de Térraba''), in the southern Brunca region of

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 ...

, is the largest river in that country. The

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

Boruca language The Boruca language (in Boruca: Brúnkajk, also known as Bronka, Bronca, Brunca) is the native language of the Boruca people of Costa Rica. Boruca belongs to the Isthmian branch of the Chibchan languages. Though exact speaker numbers are uncertai ...

name is ''Diquís'' which means "great river". Its basin is and it is long, covering ten percent of the country. It is a tributary from the confluence of the Río General and Río Coto Brus.Río Grande de Térraba
Guías Costa Rica. Retrieved: 2012-11-04. Pineapple plantations occupy in the basin, amounting to 21 percent of national production.Caracterización Socioeconómica de la Cuenca del Río Grande de Térraba
Escuela de Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad Nacional Heredia, 2010. Mangrove cockles (''

Anadara tuberculosa ''Anadara tuberculosa'' is a species of bivalves belonging to the family Arcidae. The species is found in the Americas, with its distribution ranging from Mexico to Peru. It lives in mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coa ...

'' and ''

Anadara similis ''Anadara'' is a genus of saltwater bivalves, ark clams, in the family Arcidae. It is also called ''Scapharca''. This genus is known in the fossil record from the Cretaceous period to the Quaternary period (age range: 140.2 to 0.0 million y ...

''), known locally as ''piangua'', are collected in the

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

swamps and mud at the mouth of the Río Grande de Térraba. The

Interamerican Highway The Inter-American Highway (IAH) is the Central American section of the Pan-American Highway and spans between Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Panama City, Panama. History The idea of a road being built across all of Central America became a tangible ...

partially follows the river course and crosses it with a bridge. Along the river lie the villages of

Palmar Norte Palmar Norte is a town in Costa Rica, located next to Palmar Sur in the Osa region of Puntarenas Province. Although small, the town serves as a major agricultural center and as an important transit point for travelers to the Palmar Sur Airport P ...

Palmar Sur Palmar Sur is a town in Costa Rica, located next to Palmar Norte in the Osa region of Puntarenas Province of Costa Rica. Palmar Norte and Palmar Sur are separated by the Rio Terraba. Palmar Sur has a regional airport that has daily flights ...

and Ciudad Cortés. The Térraba empties in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

with six mouths: Mala, Brava, Chica, Zacate, Guarumal and

Sierpe Sierpe is a district of the Osa canton, in the Puntarenas Puntarenas () is a city in the Puntarenas canton of Puntarenas Province, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. As the seat of the Municipality of Puntarenas canton, it is awarded the titl ...

. A nationally protected wetland, Humedal Nacional Térraba-Sierpe ( Térraba-Sierpe National Wetlands) is situated here in the mangroves along the coast. A proposed project to provide

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

to the region,

El Diquís Hydroelectric Project The El Diquís Hydroelectric Project (known as the PHED for its Spanish acronym) is a cancelled hydroelectric dam project, designed by the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute). The dam was to be loca ...

, was cancelled. It would have covered and required the relocation of 1,500 people.Project Website
Proyecto Hidroelctrico El Diquís

References

External links

Case area in Costa Rica: The Terraba River basin

Terraba Basin, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Rivers of Costa Rica Ramsar sites in Costa Rica {{CostaRica-river-stub