The colón is named after Christopher Columbus, or as he is known in Spanish, Cristóbal Colón. Costa Rica has a numismatic museum with a collection of money dating from 1516. The Museo Nacional de Costa Rica has an exhibit on "Storytelling money."
As of July 5, 2009, $1 U.S. equals 576.64 Costa Rican colones. Every day the main Costa Rican newspaper, La Nación, publishes the rate at which the U.S. dollar is bought and sold.
Costa Rica has coins in circulation in denominations of 5, 10, 20, 25, 50, 100 and 500 colones.
Costa Rica has paper money in denominations of 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000. The Central Bank of Costa Rica plans to make denominations of 20,000 and 50,000 available by March 2010.
The bill worth 1,000 colones is nicknamed "rojo," which is Spanish for red. The bill worth 5,000 colones is nicknamed "tucan" because there is a picture of a toucan on it.
