Costa Rica is one of only a handful of countries on Earth with no army at all. Where another country might have soldiers, Costa Rica has teachers, nurses and park rangers.
Because so much of the country's budget goes into schools, almost every child in Costa Rica learns to read and write. Costa Rica's literacy rate - the share of grown-ups who can read - is around 98%, one of the highest in the Americas.
The money also helps the country look after its forests. Costa Rica is one of the few countries in the world where the amount of forest has been growing rather than shrinking. In the 1980s only about a quarter of the country was forest. Today it is more than half.
There is a saying in Costa Rica that 'the symbol of our country is not a soldier - it is a teacher'. Some Costa Rican coins even have a picture of a school on them.