While most Ciudad Bolívar's area is rural, its urban portion includes one of the world's largest mega-slums.

[2] Its urban area concentrates the poorest population in Bogotá and is known for its rampant levels of violence due to a large activity of gangs, mafia, and at times FARC, the national ex-terrorist group of Colombia.

There are very few neighborhoods with access to main roads besides the Avenida Ciudad de Villavicencio which crosses the locality from north to east in a diagonal sense.

The mass transit system TransMilenio covers Ciudad Bolívar in some areas with stops over the Caracas Avenue in Perdomo and Centro Comercial Paseo Villa del Río - Madelena.

The first neighborhoods were Meissen, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Lucero Bajo and La María which were populated by low income people; mainly immigrants from the neighboring Departments of Tolima, Boyacá.