It is located 12 km north of the center of Ankara and was built to control floods and provide drinking water to the city.

Its construction lasted from 1930 to 1936; Mustafa Kemal Atatürk attended its inauguration on November 3, 1936.

[2][3][4][5] It is owned and maintained by the Turkish State Hydraulic Works and was constructed at a cost of 2.32 million TRY.

Hardly used, its reservoir has a normal volume of 1,200 m3 (42,000 cu ft) and surface area of 1 km2 (0.39 sq mi).

Silt accumulation in the reservoir along with raw sewage being dumped upstream halted water supply from the dam in 1994.