White and Mestizos make up 83.4% of the population, 7% are black people (including mixed race), 2.4% Amerindians, 0.2% Chinese and 7% other/none.

These are called Afro-Costa Ricans or West Indians and are English-speaking descendants of 19th-century black Jamaican immigrant workers.

The 2011 Census provided the following data: whites and mestizos make up 83.4% of the population, 7% are black people (including mixed race), 2.4% Amerindians, 0.2% Chinese, and 7% other/none.

[4] There is also a community of North American retirees from the United States and Canada, followed by relatively large numbers of European Union expatriates (chiefly Scandinavians and from Germany) come to retire as well, and Australians.

This included permanent settlers as well as migrants who were hoping to reach the U.S.[6] In 2015, there were some 420,000 immigrants in Costa Rica[7] and the number of asylum seekers (mainly from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua) rose to more than 110,000.

The main destination countries are the United States (85,924), Nicaragua (10,772), Panama (7,760), Canada (5,039), Spain (3,339), Mexico (2,464), Germany (1,891), Italy (1,508), Guatemala (1,162) and Venezuela (1,127).

Costa Ricans of European origin are primarily of Spanish descent,[15] with significant numbers of Italian, German, English, Dutch, French, Irish, Portuguese, and Polish families, as well as a sizable Jewish community.

Exceptions are the Guanacaste province, where almost half the population is visibly mestizo, a legacy of the more pervasive unions between Spanish colonists and Chorotega Amerindians through several generations, and Limón, where the vast majority of the Afro-Costa Rican community lives.

[23] Percentages of the Costa Rican population by race are known as the national census, which includes the question of ethnicity in its form.

According to the PLoS Genetics Geographic Patterns of Genome Admixture in Latin American Mestizos study of 2012, Costa Ricans have 73% of European ancestry, 25% Amerindian, and 2% African.

After independence, large migrations of wealthy Americans, Germans, French and British businessmen[28] came to the country encouraged by the government and followed by their families and employees (many of them technicians and professionals), thus creating colonies and mixing with the population, especially the high and middle classes.

[28] Polish migrants, mostly Ashkenazi Jews who fled anti-Semitism and Nazi persecution in Europe, also arrived in large numbers.

After the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, a large influx of Republican refugees settled in the country, mostly Castilians, Galicians, and Asturians,[29] as well as later Chilean, Mexican and Colombian[28] migrants who would arrive escaping from war or dictatorships, as Costa Rica is the longest running democracy in Latin America.

Religion in Costa Rica (2008)[30][31] According to the World Factbook, the main faiths are Roman Catholic (76.3%), Evangelical (13.7%), Jehovah's Witnesses (1.3%), other Protestant (0.7%), other (4.8%), and none (3.2%).

[32] Non-Christian religious groups, including followers of Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Hare Krishna, Paganism, Wicca, Scientology, Tenrikyo, and the Baháʼí Faith, claim membership throughout the country, with the majority of worshipers residing in the Central Valley (the area of the capital).

According to the World Bank, about 489,200 migrants lived in the country in 2010; mainly from Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize, while 125,306 Costa Ricans live abroad in the United States, Panama, Nicaragua, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador.