Costa Rica is administratively divided into seven provinces which are subdivided into 84 cantons, and these are further subdivided into districts. Cantons are the only administrative division in Costa Rica that possess local government in the form of municipalities. Each municipality has its own mayor and several representatives, all of them chosen via municipal elections every four years.

Monteverde is the twelfth canton of the Puntarenas province of Costa Rica, located in the Cordillera de Tilarán. Roughly a four-hour drive from the Central Valley, Monteverde is one of the country's major ecotourism destinations, with the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde being the largest, in addition to several other natural attractions which draw considerable numbers of tourists and naturalists, both from Costa Rica and abroad.