Bouar lies on a plateau almost 1000m above sea level and is known as the site of Camp Leclerc, a French military base.

The Bouar Megaliths, dating back to the very late Neolithic Era (c. 3500–2700 BC) were added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on April 11, 2006 in the Cultural category.

[6] Hundreds of granite megaliths around Bouar were erected during the Late Stone Age by an ancient farming society.

In 1911, the area around Bouar was ceded by France to Germany under the terms of the Morocco-Congo Treaty, becoming part of the German colony of Neukamerun until it was reconquered by the French during World War I.

The colonial town centre was occupied and burned down in the late 1920s by Gbaya rebels during the Kongo-Wara rebellion.

[13] A French journalist, Camille Lepage, was also killed and her body found in the car of Anti-balaka troops in the Bouar region in May, 2014.