Situated between a river, an artificial flowing lake, various islands, and a heavily wooded area, air humidity is heightened compared to the rest of the city, helping to nullify Belgrade's high temperatures during summer.

There is also a "Magical forest", an area for the kids with reproductions of the fairytale characters: Evil Witch, Cinderella, Wolf and the Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, etc.

In order to ease the access to the zoo on an island, city will push the construction of the pedestrian bridge and revitalize the project of gondola lift from New Belgrade to Košutnjak, via Ada.

[16][17] Šapić then back-pedaled a bit, stating that this is just a "political idea" which is not hastily made, that only now analyses and surveys will be done to check the viability, that nothing will be built instead of the zoo but the fortress will be conserved, and that there is no set time frame for the project.

Upstream from Čukarica, at the time suburban village of Belgrade, the Society dammed the arm with slanted, shackled, thick triangular piles, called pilotne.

[21] The arm is elongated in the southwest–northeast direction, bounded by the northern tip of Ada Ciganlija, the embankment and the right bank of the Sava (neighborhoods of Careva Ćuprija and southern stretch of Bara Venecija, formerly known as Šest Topola).

The plan to build a treatment plant on the bank near the Belgrade Fair which would detoxicate the sludge and produce fertilizer from it was scrapped due to the high costs.

A project by Aleksandar Nedeljković, named "Flight of the gull" envisions the reconstruction and elevation of all embankments along the bay's banks, turning them into the vertical retaining walls.

However, this project, just like some others from the competition (conducting the Topčiderka directly into the main Sava riverbed by the pipes) does not tackle the problem of the already existing sludge deposits or the toxicity of the waste.

[21] An experiment was conducted when the water from the bay and river was pumped into the special pools in the nursery gardens of the state company for the forest management "Srbijašume".

The red wastewater from the sewage also influenced water's organoleptic qualities – changed color, murkiness, strong smell and visible residues of organic matter,[32] but in May city administration announced it inspected the Topčiderka's watershed, founded the polluting factories and closed them, fixing this problem.

They are mostly mute swans and are quickly adapted: more and more of them becoming sedentary rather than migratory, accustoming to humans who regularly feed them, becoming popular among the residents, and turning into the mascots of the neighborhoods they inhabit.

When their number exceeded 1,000, they resettled to three new locations: first at the willow grove on the Sava's bank (Belgrade Fair) and then to the area near the tip of Ada and the neighboring Mala Ciganlija.

As the nearby Ada Safari wasn't adapted yet and was a marshland, original settlers, who were from the upper classes, were leaving and instead the workers who migrated from the interior of Serbia settled in.

During the 2006 European floods, city authorities urged them to move to the mainland from the settlement, which was located almost 8 m (26 ft) below the dam, as the Sava reached a record height of 723 cm (285 in).

As the opposing, Syrmian side across the Sava was a vast marsh at the time (modern New Belgrade), the bridge didn't stop at the bank but continued for some length above the swamp.

According to the records, a seasoned Belgrade master craftsman Đorđević "in only one month, with the help of his 400 workers, built the Long Bridge, using 2,000 tree trunks, 1,100 wooden piles, 15,500 bundles of palings and 12,000 palisade pickets."

In an effort to exploit the withdrawal of the Serbian army from Syrmia in September 1914, Austro-Hungarian Lieutenant field marshal Kasimir von Lütgendorf [de] decided to conduct the feint attack on the Sava rivers (Ciganlija and Međica) which was to be followed by the landing operation on the Serbian side of the river, conquering of the neighborhoods of Banovo Brdo and Topčider and then, using the western route, entering downtown Belgrade.

As Austrian army had problems with the invasion of western Serbia and attack on Šabac, General Alfred Krauß [de] asked from the commander of the forces for the entire Balkans, Oskar Potiorek, to send him two regiments from Lütgendorf.

One of the submitted works, titled Urbs Magna ("Great City"), proposed construction of the large, multi-functional stadium and transformation of the island into the sports park.

[69][70] On the night of 17 July 1946, new Communist authorities executed a number of former politicians on Ada Ciganlija, while military officers were tried as collaborators with the Nazis during World War II, including Chetniks leaders Draža Mihailović and Kosta Mušicki, and ministers in the government of Milan Nedić: Tanasije-Tasa Dinić, Đura Dokić and Velibor Jonić.

[47] Milan Pećinar [sr], engineer and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts suggested the dual solution for Ada, as both the source of the drinking water and a sports and recreation center.

The northern edge of the island is lined with attached floating barges, or houses on the water owned by many inhabitants of Belgrade as a weekend refuge given the peninsula's exceptionally quiet and green environment.

Other famous bohemians which dwelled occasionally on Ada after the 1960s were actor Dragan Nikolić, writers Momo Kapor and Zuko Džumhur and opera singers Živan Saramandić [sr] and Milka Stojanović.

[93] Though construction works were effectivelly completed in May 2021, it remained closed, and the opening was moved to March 2022,[94] then prolonged to August,[95] late September,[96] November 2022,[97] and then to January 2023, as all necessary permits still weren't issued, and the city still had to officially take over the ownership of the footbridge.

Although there are land routes leading to the island across the artificial dams, they are seldom used due to poor accessibility to the city's main roads and public transport system.

Due to the ever-larger number of visitors, GSP Beograd introduced special seasonal bus lines, specifically designated for transport to Ada Ciganlija from distant parts of Belgrade.

This was one of the reasons for the protests of the local residents, who claimed the bridge will disrupt neighborhood's green zones, create even larger traffic jams, and turn Block 70 into the vast parking lot for Ada visitors.

In 1928, building company "Šumadija" again proposed the construction of the cable car, which they called "air tram" but this project was planned to connect Zemun to Kalemegdan on Belgrade Fortress, via Great War Island.

It is now possible to play sports that were not even invented when transformation of Ada began and it has become a highly popular gathering place, especially among youth, and a must-see destination for foreign tourists visiting Belgrade.