Costa Rica Celebrates Guanacaste Day!

Today, Costa Rica celebrates the 188th anniversary of the annexation of Guanacaste, when on July 25, 1824, under the leadership of the villages of Nicoya and Santa Cruz, the Partido de Nicoya voted to annex themselves to Costa Rica.



‘Guanacastecos’ have always been well identified with Costa Rica and take pride in being a part of this country. Proof of this is their famous slogan ‘de la patria por nuestra voluntad’, which means ‘part of this country by our own choice’.

This annexation by choice celebrates Costa Rica’s core values of democracy.

There is big historic fact that we must to understand about this fact. Many people made a mistake thinking that Guanacaste was part of Nicaragua, but it wasn’t true.

The Partido de Nicoya was a major part of what is now the Guanacaste province in Costa Rica. Originally the territory was bounded on the northeast by the La Flor river and Lake Cocibolca, or Lake Nicaragua, on the south by Costa Rica (Gulf of Nicoya, Tempisque River, Salto River), and on the east by a line that joins the northernmost part of the Gulf of Nicoya to the mouth of the San Juan River.

The name Nicoya is thought to derive from the Nahuatl words Nicoa and Necoclau, the latter which seems to mean peninsula; necoc meaning both sides and lau meaning sea.

The Nicoya region was organized in 1554 as a Corregimiento or Alcaldía Mayor, under the direct control of the Captaincy General of Guatemala.

In 1787, the Corregimiento was added to the Intendencia of the León of Nicaragua. Nicoya was considered a Subdelegado of the Intendencia, and a subalterno of the Intendente of León. In 1812, the Spanish Constitution divided the territory of the Kingdom of Guatemala into political parts. One of these was the Partido de Nicoya.

In 1820, upon the administrative division of the Province of Nicaragua y Costa Rica, Nicoya became one of its Partidos, ruled by a Jefe Político Subalterno, in turn ruled by the Jefe Político Superior resident in León. In 1821, on the division of Spain and the dissolution of the province of Nicaragua y Costa Rica, the Partido of Nicoya came under the primary authority of the governor of Granada de Nicaragua and then, in 1823, the governor of León.

The people of Nicoya, in a public event called "cabildo abierto", the equivalent to modern referendums, decided to annex the Partido de Nicoya to the Republic of Costa Rica. On July 25, 1824, Nicoya was formally annexed to Costa Rica. Since then, the coat of arms of Nicoya states the words: "De la patria por nuestra voluntad" which could be translated as "part of the homeland by our own will".

Because of Nicoya’s location, argued area residents, it would be easier to join with Costa Rica than continue under the relationship with Guatemala, which was much further to the north.