A geographically/ecologically based understanding of Lower Central America, however brief, is essential in order to comprehend the cultural development of Costa Rica and Greater Nicoya. Particular aspects of the physical landscape affected settlement patterns, subsistence, and acquisition of natural resources, encouraged or impeded human movement, and established the limits for human cultural development. The region's principal physical features are the almost continuous chain of volcanoes and the dry Pacific coastal lowlands, which contrast with the wetter Central Highlands and Atlantic coastal lowlands outside Greater Nicoya.