Ciudad Bolívar is the 19th locality in the Capital District of the Colombian capital city Bogotá. Ciudad Bolívar is located in the south of the city at the southern border of the Bogotá savanna. This district is mostly inhabited by underclass residents. While most Ciudad Bolívar's area is rural, its urban portion includes one of the world's largest mega-slums. 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.
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, Kennedy and Tunjuelito by the Tunjuelito River and the Autopista Sur. To the west, it borders the municipalities of Soacha, Sibaté and Pasca, to the south borders with the locality of Sumapaz, to the east with the localities of Tunjuelito and Usme.
During the 1950s, the area was formed by haciendas 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 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 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 planify the area's development. On September 14, 1983, the Minor City hall of Ciudad Bolívar was created. With the Colombian Constitution of 1991 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 with 11 councilmen.
