Mar Vista is near the center of LA's West Side. The city of Santa Monica lies to the northwest, West Los Angeles to the north, Palms to the northeast, Culver City to the east, Del Rey to the southwest, and Venice to the west. Its approximate boundaries are the city limits of Culver City and the San Diego Freeway (I-405) on the northeast and southeast, Walgrove Avenue on the southwest, and the Santa Monica Municipal Airport and National Boulevard on the northwest. Major thoroughfares through the district include Washington Place; Palms, Venice, Sawtelle, Inglewood, and Grand View Boulevards; McLaughlin, Barrington, Short, and Centinela Avenues; and Beethoven Street. The district uses the 90066 ZIP code.

The Westdale area of northern Mar Vista — the area bounded by Sawtelle Boulevard, National Boulevard, Bundy Drive, and Palms Boulevard — is a neighborhood within the bounds of the Mar Vista Community Council. Mar Vista is an economically diverse neighborhood of apartment buildings and single-family homes. The hilly areas near its border with Santa Monica, whose spectacular ocean views give Mar Vista its name, hold some of the most expensive land in the community.

Mar Vista is considerably less densely populated than neighboring Palms, as its homeowners' associations successfully fended off the 1950s up-zoning that changed much of Palms and West Los Angeles from suburban areas to renter-dominated urban neighborhoods. It should be noted, though, that some 60 percent of the district's residents live in rental housing, owing to the density of apartment buildings on thoroughfares like Venice Boulevard and Barrington Avenue.

In recent years, the escalating cost of real estate (even a 1,500 square foot 1940s tract house may go for upwards of $800,000) has led to a rise in the number of newly constructed Mediterranean Revival-inspired houses on Mar Vista Hill. Nearby UCLA maintains a large graduate student housing complex along Sawtelle Boulevard near National Boulevard, as well as a smaller housing block along the north side of Venice Boulevard between Inglewood and McLaughlin Avenues.

The Pacific Electric Railway "Red Car" streetcars ran along Venice and Culver Boulevards during the neighborhood's early years, but were shut down after World War II. The Mar Vista Recreation Center has an auditorium, barbecue pits, an unlighted baseball diamond, lighted indoor basketball courts, lighted outdoor basketball courts, a children's play area, an indoor gymnasium without weights, an outdoor roller hockey rink, picnic tables, a lighted tennis court, and a lighted volleyball court.

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