Costa Rica News – The genetic mixture of ticos is something that, interestingly, is similar throughout the whole country. Although there are more light skinned blued eyed people in the south and central valley and more Chinese in the north of Guanacaste and in the south, the percentages of genetic composition typically found in all areas of the nation are 50% European, 35% Amerindian and 10% African. Those in the central valley tend to have 5% more European genes, but that’s not a big difference.
Unless your family arrived within the last few generations, being new to the country, your own genetic mixture is very likely 50% European, 35% Amerindian and 10% African. Asian genes are also typical in Ticos. Chinese contribue 5-7% of genes distributed in all the provinces.
We’ve always been “mixed” because even the Spanish and Africans who came to the country were mixed before arriving. They did not have genes 100% of one racial type.
Costa Ricans physically look whiter than their neighbors for some reason, although genetically our racial mix is very similar to that seen throughout Central America.
The three ethnic groups we likely have represented in our genes are Amerindians, who entered the continent 12,000 years ago, Europeans, who have 20 generations here over the last 500 years, and Africans, who entered in the nineteenth century from Caribbean islands.
