Showcase 04 · Cross-border — international buyers & their advisors

San Carlos, Costa Rica

Alajuela province — agricultural heartland, Arenal corridor

The hardest question in buying land abroad is not "is it beautiful" — it is "what is it actually worth, compared to what I know?" San Carlos has been scored by Arcanium on the same absolute 0–100 scale as every US county: a 44 here means exactly what a 44 means in South Carolina.

The band above is the Arcanium ramp — red is weak ground, green is strong. In the analysis every tile in the canton takes its color from its Index score.

WeakestStrongest 35.8–66.8 of 100 · 3,566 km² of land drawn

San Carlos canton as it was scored, read-only. Every tile is the Index at one kilometre. Ranking sites, screening by factor, the dossier behind each tile and, on coastal ground, the sea-level scenarios open with an account — see plans or create one.

Why cross-border comparison is usually impossible

Most scoring ranks a market against itself, so every market's best site is a 100 and no two markets can ever be compared — which is precisely the question an international buyer is asking.

Arcanium's variables are absolute measurements on a world scale — water, hazard, governance and population each measured the same way in Costa Rica as in Carolina — so the number crosses the border with its meaning intact.

Scored across the canton

San Carlos has been analyzed — scored at 1 km, ranked site by site, with the full dossier behind every tile: what each variable measured, and how much to trust it.

Commission the canton, or the ground you are weighing against it, and the sites rank together with every other analysis you hold. For a buyer weighing Costa Rica against a US alternative, that is the whole decision on one screen.

Scoredthe whole canton, at 1 km

0–100same scale as every US county

9scored variables, per square kilometer

1 kmresolution — about 250 acres a tile

The nine variables behind the score

WRIWater resourcehow much a site can reach, and how much of it flows

MSRDMinerals & subsurfaceknown occurrences in and around the site

IASInfrastructure accessdistance-decayed reach to major roads

APPAgricultural potentialwhat the ground can support, at fine grain

PGDPPopulation growthhow many are there now, and which way it moves

GRLIGovernance & rule of lawstability and security of ownership

CRHEClimate hazardphysical exposure on a world scale

EMIEconomic momentumwhether the surrounding economy is gaining

PDSDevelopment signalhow built-up the tile already is

Every value carries a confidence rating that falls when a number was broadcast from a coarser unit than the tile — the dossier states it per variable, per tile.

Measured, deliberately not scored: ECI — the residential ¢/kWh of the utility that actually serves the tile. It is reported beside the Index and never blended into it, because the right power price for a data center and for a grain dryer are not the same number, and a weight would decide that for you. The residential rate is the one class every utility files on the same basis, which is what makes two territories comparable.

What this sheet does not claim

The electricity-cost layer is published for the United States today; outside the US it is absent rather than approximated — a missing price must never read as a cheap one. Arcanium measures fundamentals; it does not advise on title, residency, or local counsel, and an international purchase should involve all three.

Compare it to home. The canton and the county, side by side, on one scale.

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