Due to the location of its eastern boundary, it is also the easternmost municipality in the Miami metropolitan area.

It is home to the Port of Palm Beach and a United States Coast Guard station, and has its own marina.

The eastern part of the city includes most of Singer Island, a peninsula on the Atlantic coast of Palm Beach County, Florida, which is separated from the mainland portion of the city by Lake Worth's Lake Worth Lagoon.

[20] Much of the year is warm to hot in Riviera Beach, and frost is extremely rare.

As is typical in South Florida, there are two basic seasons in Riviera Beach, a mild and dry winter (November through April), and a hot and wet summer (May through October).

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 37,604 people, 12,045 households, and 7,425 families residing in the city.

[30] The Riviera Beach City Council has received national attention for its repeated clashes with local activist Fane Lozman, starting with his successful lawsuit, brought under Florida's open-meetings law, to prevent them from seizing the marina under eminent domain and selling it to private developers.

In 2018, Lozman won a rare second victory at the court, this one arising from his arrest during a city council meeting in November 2006.