Kingdom of Nicoya

In the 16th century, prior to the arrival of Europeans, Nicoya was the most important chiefdom of the North Pacific of present-day Costa Rica.

The successive entrances of the Nicaraos, the Rivas Isthmus, produced, in turn, the Chorotegas moved and occupied, the islands and the eastern band of the Gulf of Nicoya, which caused them to come into contact and exert cultural influence on the groups of Native Americans from central and southern Costa Rica, which are located in the Mesoamerica area, but without eliminating local bases.

[4][5] Archaeological research shows that the Nicoyan society achieved a complex social organization and a high degree of cultural development.

Upon the arrival of the Spaniards into Nicoya in the 16th century, they found complex cities and governments, specialized agriculture that included irrigation, arts and crafts, highlighting the triad of polychrome ceramics (whose tradition has been inherited by Guanacastecan artisans to this day), the making of jewelry from jade and the manufacture of stone metates, with various regional styles.

Another theory says that Nicoya was actually the name by which the Nicoyan kings were called, and that it comes from the Nahuatl Necoc Yáotl, “with enemies on both sides,” since the Chorotegas had constant warlike conflicts with their northern neighbors, the Nicarao people, the huetar Garabito Empire located to the east, and with the aborigines of the Chira Island, who disputed control of the peninsula and the gulf.