The neighbourhood is bordered by the Bow River to the north and east, 16 Avenue to the south, and Stoney Trail to the west.

The neighbourhood of Montgomery, another former town amalgamated into the City of Calgary a year earlier in 1963, is located across the river to the east.

The park sits between the Bow River and a lagoon, and is popular for picnics, summer sports, ice skating in the winter, and boating.

Archeological evidence shows that the Nitsitapii (Blackfoot) have been in the area for over a thousand years, with Stoney, Cree and Tsuu T'ina peoples arriving from the sixteenth century onwards.

Non-natives reached the region in the late 1700s, after which native populations began to decline rapidly, due to epidemics and the decimation of the bison herds on which they depended.

In 1877, the Blackfoot, Blood, Peigan, Tsuu T'ina and Stoney First Nations signed Treaty 7, were forced to live on reserves that covered some of their traditional hunting grounds.

The name Bowness was apparently chosen by Stone, who had enjoyed visiting Bowness-on-Windermere in the English Lake District before coming to Canada.

Calgary, just six miles to the east, was booming at the time and Hextall envisioned turning Bowness into an exclusive residential suburb "in a natural scenic setting of great beauty".

Despite an aggressive advertising campaign, and improvements such as the building of a golf course and club house, only a handful of lots were sold.

It was managed by Fred McCall, a Canadian wartime flying ace, who flew mostly sightseeing flights to Banff and around the area throughout the twenties.

Bowness began to take off again after World War II, when the government provided 48 one acre plots to returning veterans, in an area known as the Soldiers' Settlement.

Like many older Calgary neighbourhoods, Bowness is experiencing gentrification with the renovation and reconstruction of some of the housing and commercial properties.

[25][26] This puts it at this comparison to other Calgary communities: Saddle Ridge (1.358/100), Whitehorn (1.741/100), Rundle (2.342/100), Brentwood (2.348/100), Acadia (2.542/100), Bowness (2.934/100), Shawnessy (3.296/100), Inglewood (3.438/100), Sunnyside (3.650/100), Marlborough (4.703/100), Southwood (5.147/100), Sunalta (5.307/100), Montgomery (5.483/100), Forest Lawn (6.528/100), Rosscarrock (7.049/100), Downtown Commercial Core (12.705/100), Downtown East Village (15.605/100), Manchester (43.368/100).