This park, located in the province of Guanacaste, on the Northpacific, 36 km North of the city of Liberia, was created on June 5, 1991, by the executive decree no. 20516-MIRENEM, and comprises an area of 32.512 hectares.

It contains a huge ecological diversity, distributed in its forests: There are very humid tropical forests, humid tropical forests, cloud forests and dry tropical forests.

The park´s higher parts are represented by the massifs of the Orosí and Cacao volcanoes. It is also important to mention that the Tempisque river rises between the Orosilito hill and the Cacao volcano, which, togehter with other rivers, such as the Ahogados and the Colorado, forms the Tempisque river, Guanacaste´s main collector.

For its extensión, diversity and location, on the Atlantic slope as well as on the Pacific slope, the parks owns a great biological diversity in its evergreen humid forest. The forest on the Orosí and Cacao volcanoe´s summits is a primary one, with mostly epiphyte plants, such as the bromelia and orchids, ferns, araceas and moss.

There are about 3.000 plant species in this park, the predominant ones are the maría, the tempisque, the kork tree, the capulín, the danto, the calabash tree and the golden fruit.

The diversity of birds is standing out, there are some 300 species, among them the turkey, the goldfinch, the golden oriole of Montezuma, the little toucan, the king of vultures, the eagle owl, the bell bird, the sunshade bird, the magpie and the cargahuesos (Spanish for:¨carries bones¨), among others.Some of the most representative mammals are the tepezcuinte, the deer, the jaguar, the cariblanco, the puma, the tapir, the coati, the saíno (a wild pig), the amardillo and the two-fingered sloth.

According to estimations concerning the number of nocturnal and diurnal butterfly species, there are about 5.000 species in the park.