The community continued to serve as housing for employees of the Panama Canal Company until 1980, when parts of it began to be turned over to the Panamanian government under the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

Modern-day Ancón is a corregimiento (the Panamanian equivalent of a suburb in the United States) of Panama City, serving mainly as a residential area.

The district also home to the Administrative Unit of Reverted properties of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, established in 2007 as a replacement for the former Inter-Oceanic Region Authority.

Many of the buildings belonging to former US military bases are today sites of Panamanian governmental and nongovernmental institutions, such as the City of Knowledge, the main science and technology park in the country, in the area of the former Fort Clayton.

The district of Ancón includes the Parque Natural Metropolitano, a vast jungle located a few minutes from the city, and its highest elevation, Ancon Hill.

The Amador Causeway, a section of which runs over the sea, joining three small Pacific islands, is one of the city's most popular tourist attractions, with marinas, restaurants, bars, and discothèques.