The town of Eğirdir lies near its southern end, 107 kilometers (66 miles) north of Antalya.

A number of ancient settlements have been located around the lake: places whose names are known were Eğirdir itself (historically known as Akroterion), Parlaos, Malos, and Prostanna; and places whose ancient names are not known were at the ruin sites of Bedre, Ghaziri, and Ertokuş Han, as well as on Yeşil Ada.

In the 14th century, Ibn Batutta mentioned merchant shipping on the lake at Eğirdir (or Akrīdūr, as he called the city in Arabic).

[3]: 797  The main streams which feed Lake Eğirdir are the Pupa, the Hoyran, the Yalvaç, and the Çay.

[5]: 277–8  The first major change came in 1955, when the non-native pike perch, which preys on other fish, was intentionally introduced to the lake.

[3]: 797  The population dynamics of the lake's ecosystem "rapidly collapsed", and two endemic species became locally extinct.

[5]: 278  Since then, other exotic species have been introduced to the lake, such as the omnivorous Prussian carp by 1996 and the plankton- and fish-eating big-scale sand smelt by 2003.

[3]: 802  Predation and overfishing have threatened the lake's Eurasian carp population, especially since the 2000s, and its annual catch has fallen by 90% from what it was in the 1950s.

[3]: 803  Pike perch fishery has also decreased in importance in recent decades as that fish's population has contracted.

[8]: 3.3  The second phase is recent alluvial sedimentary deposits from Quaternary times, especially visible in areas around Eğirdir and Barla as well as around Lake Kovada.

[8]: 3.3 This region is very seismically active; for example, in March 2007, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake happened on the lake's eastern shore, along the Esinyurt Fault; it was followed by 93 smaller aftershocks over a period of 4 days.