Ciudad Bolívar is the 19th locality in the

Capital District A capital district, capital region, or capital territory is normally a specially designated administrative division where a country's seat of government is located. As such, in a federal model of government, no state or territory has any politic ...

of the

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

n capital city

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

. Ciudad Bolívar is located in the south of the city at the southern border of the

Bogotá savanna The Bogotá savanna is a savanna#Savanna ecoregions, montane savanna, located in the southwestern part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the center of Colombia. The Bogotá savanna has an extent of and an average altitude of . The savanna is si ...

. This district is mostly inhabited by under privileged residents. While most Ciudad Bolívar's area is rural, its urban portion includes one of the world's largest mega-

slum A slum is a highly populated Urban area, urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are p ...

s. Mike Davis, ''Planet of Slums'', La Découverte, Paris, 2006 (), p. 31. 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 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (, FARC–EP or FARC) was a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict starting in 1964. The FARC-EP was officially founded in 1966 from peasan ...

, the national ex-terrorist group of Colombia.

Geography

The locality of Ciudad Bolívar is 90% mountainous and has a total area of , of which is urban, making it the 7th largest locality of Bogota. The locality is located in the southwestern part of the urban area of Bogota, bordering to the north with the locality of

Bosa Bosa is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Oristano (until May 2005 it was in the province of Nuoro), part of the Sardinia region of Italy. Bosa is situated about two-thirds of the way up the west coast of Sardinia, on a small hill, about ...

Kennedy Kennedy may refer to: People * Kennedy (surname), including any of several people with that surname ** Kennedy family, a prominent American political family that includes: *** Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. (1888–1969), American businessman, investor, ...

and

Tunjuelito Tunjuelito is the 6th locality of the Capital District of the Colombian capital, Bogotá. Tunjuelito is located in the south of Bogotá, bordering to the north with the localities of Bosa, Kennedy and Puente Aranda, to the east with the localit ...

by the Tunjuelito River and the Autopista Sur. To the west, it borders the municipalities of

Soacha Soacha is an autonomous municipality of the department of Cundinamarca in Colombia, and part of the Metropolitan Area of Bogotá. It has an important industrial zone and is home to mostly working-class families. Soacha borders Bojacá and Mosq ...

Sibaté Sibaté () is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Soacha Province, part of the department of Cundinamarca. Sibaté is located on the Bogotá savanna with the urban centre at an altitude of and a distance of from the capital Bogotá. It f ...

and

Pasca Pasca is a town and municipality in the Cundinamarca Department, Cundinamarca department of Colombia located in the Andes. It belongs to the Sumapaz Province. Pasca is situated on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense at a distance of from the capital B ...

, to the south borders with the locality of

Sumapaz Sumapaz is the 20th locality of Bogotá, capital of Colombia. It is the largest of Bogotá's 20 localities, starting in the north at the edge of the urban frontier with Usme and stretching to the south at the border of Cundinamarca with the depa ...

, to the east with the localities of

and

Usme Usme is the 5th locality of the Bogotá, Capital District, Capital District of Bogotá, capital city of Colombia. Usme is located in the south of Bogotá, bordering to the north the localities of San Cristóbal, Bogotá, San Cristóbal, Rafael Ur ...

Transport

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 Avenida Boyacá is the main road for the neighborhoods located on the eastern side of the locality and the Avenida Jorge Gaitán Cortés which serves the neighborhoods of the southeastern part. The mass transit system

TransMilenio TransMilenio is a bus rapid transit (BRT) system that serves Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, and Soacha, a neighbouring city. The system opened to the public in December 2000. As of 2024, 12 lines totalling run throughout the city. It is pa ...

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

TransMiCable TransMiCable is a gondola lift system implemented by the city of Bogotá, Colombia, with the purpose of providing a complementary transportation service to TransMilenio. Line T, with a length of 3,34 km and four stations, connects the ''Porta ...

gondola lift opened in 2018 and serves the steep hill neighbourhoods of Ciudad Bolívar.

History

During the 1950s, the area was formed by

hacienda A ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or '' finca''), similar to a Roman '' latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards ...

s which were fractioned as a process of urbanization due to its proximity to the exploding Bogotá's urban development. 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 Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military * Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

of Tolima, Boyacá. The rapid population growth in the area reached in the 1970s some 50,000 inhabitants. A second urbanization stage started in the 1980s with settlements on the higher parts of the southern hills with neighborhoods as Naciones Unidas, Cordillera, Alpes, Juan José Rondón, Juan Pablo II and others. The

Inter-American Development Bank The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB or IADB) is an international development finance institution headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States of America. It serves as one of the leading sources of development financing for the countri ...

also helped to develop the neighborhoods of Sierra Morena, Arborizadora Alta and Baja for low-income families which in less than 20 years generated areas of concentration. Since 1983 the Council of Bogotá designed the Ciudad Bolívar Plan which was designed to plan the area's development. On September 14, 1983, the Minor City hall of Ciudad Bolívar was created. With the

Colombian Constitution of 1991 The Political Constitution of Colombia of 1991 (), is the Constitution of the Republic of Colombia. It was promulgated in Constitutional Gazette number 114 on Sunday, July 7, 1991, and is also known as the Constitution of Human Rights. It re ...

Bogotá's Special District was changed to a Capital District and Ciudad Bolívar became a locality with its own Local City hall and Local Administrative Junta (Council) with 11 councilmen.

Neighborhoods and veredas

Neighborhoods

Some of the better known neighborhoods are: La Estrella, El Paraíso, Lucero Alto, San Joaquín, Sierra Morena, San Francisco, Perdomo, Madelena, La Isla, Alto de La Cruz, Minuto de María and Francisco Pizarro.

Veredas

Some of the ''veredas'' located in Ciudad Bolívar are El Mochuelo, located near the Doña Juana

landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...

and Pasquilla.

Paleontology

In 1987, fossil remains of ''

Etayoa ''Etayoa'' is an ungulate of the family Carodniidae in the order Xenungulata that lived during the Early Eocene (~ 55 Ma) in northern South America. Etymology The genus of the type species ''Etayoa bacatensis'' was named by palaeontologist ...

bacatensis'' were found in Ciudad Bolívar.Description of ''Etayoa bacatensis''
–

Paleobiology Database The Paleobiology Database (PBDB) is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms. History The Paleobiology Database originated in the NCEAS-funded Phanerozoic Marine Pale ...

Born in Ciudad Bolívar

* Miguel Ángel Rubiano, professional cyclist

References

External links

*
Bogotá official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ciudad Bolivar (Bogota) Localities of Bogotá Slums in South America