Historically, Costa Rica has had a larger yeoman farmer sector than most other countries
in Latin America. But this difference of degree should not be exaggerated into a difference of kind, as it has often been. Latifundia have always been an important part of the rural economy in the northern Pacific region and elsewhere. An agricultural census found that 36.9% of the landholders hold only 1% of the farmland. The land Gini coefficient, a standard measure of inequality, was a staggering .86, exceeded elsewhere in Latin America but perhaps nowhere else.