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Irazú Volcano National Park
The Irazú Volcano is an active volcano in Costa Rica with a long history of eruptions and eruptives cycles. Irazú has erupted frequently in historical times at least 23 times since its first well-recorded eruption in 1723. Its most famous recent eruption began in 1963 and continued until 1965.
The Irazú Volcano it is located on the Central Volcanic Mountain range, 31 km to the northeast of the city of Cartago and 54 Kilometers from San José City. It was created like park by means of Article no. 6 of statutory law no. 1917 of the Costa Rican Institute in July 30 of 1955. The Service of National Parks administers this one park from 1970. Its extension is of 2,309 hectares.
The Irazú it is a zone of great hydrologic importance. In him several rivers are born that feed the river basins of the Chirripó River, Reventazón River, Sarapiquí River and the river Grande de Tárcoles.
The origin of its name has its roots in an indigenous town that existed in the skirts of the volcano call Iztarú, word that meant the mountain of trembling and rumbling. Nevertheless, through the years, like product of the verbal communication, its name was modified to Irazú.
The volcano's summit has several craters, one of which contains a green crater lake of variable depth. It is the highest active volcano in Costa Rica. It is easily visited from San José, with a road leading right up to the summit craters and a daily bus service to the top. It is thus a popular tourist spot. The volcano summit also spots a few television transmitters for television stations in San José.
The Irazú is a Stratovolcano of 3,432 meters of altitude, with irregular subconical form, with violent eruptions and five different craters. The Most important by its recent activity are the Main, almost circular Crater and with walls very inclined. It measures 1050 meters of diameter and 300 meters of depth. The Crater Diego de La Haya of 600 meters of diameter and 100 meters of depth. Other craters are the Playa Hermosa, la Laguna and the Pyroclastic.
The vegetation in the highest part is characteristic of the sub alpine pluvial barren plain, zone of life that is developed to heights superior to the 3,300 meters and until the 4,000 meters, typical of the Andean regions.
Between its birds they emphasize species like the Careto carpenter, Yigüirro, goldfinch, the brown Owl, reddish climbing, the zacatera, the pitorreal and several species of hummingbirds. Some mammals that can be observed are the wild rabbit, coyote, the armadillo, Porcupine, the weasel, caucel and the red squirrel.
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