The Tempisque River, or Río Tempisque, is long, located entirely in

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

flowing from the Guanacaste Cordillera 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 Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereig ...

and emptying into the

Gulf of Nicoya The Gulf of 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 landing in Nicaragua ...

. It passes through the Palo Verde National Park and is an important

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, 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 manifestation of its ...

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 more loosely to include ...

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

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 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti, J.N. Laurenti in ...

s and

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

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 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 in width and is about lon ...

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. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

ese government, and opened in November 2002.

References

Rivers of Costa Rica Geography of Guanacaste Province {{CostaRica-river-stub