Abstract Background: Currently, most of the world’s population lives in cities, and this trend of the rapid urbanization of the population affects the increase in the demand for products, goods and services. To effectively design policies for urban sustainability it is important to know the trends of the flows of energy and materials that enter and leave the city. This knowledge is essential to recognize key elements characterizing the future urban growth and to be able to face supply challenges in the future. This paper presents the analysis of the flows of energy and materials (urban metabolism) in the city of Bogotá, covering a time span from 2001 to 2017. Urban flows are also characterized in terms of their temporal evolution with respect to the population growth, in order to compare and identify the changes in the main input flows, wealth production, emissions and waste in the city. Results: The results of the analysis are also compared with other selected large urban agglomerations in Latin America and worldwide, highlighting similarities and inferences. The results show that in Bogotá, there was a decrease in some of the material flow in recent years, such as the consumption of water and the generation of discharge, while there was an increase in the consumption of energy and cement and the production of CO 2 emissions and construction materials. Solid waste production remained relatively stable. With respect to the other large cities considered, we observe that the 10-year growth rates of the metabolic flows with respect to the population growth are lower, in particular when compared with the other urban agglomeration of Latin America. Conclusions: The findings of this study are important to advance the characterization of the trends in material and energy flow in the city and contribute to the consolidation of a baseline that allows for the definition and evaluation of the different impacts of public policy that promotes the sustainability of the city in the coming decades.