The Keban Dam, completed in 1974, is one of the largest hydroelectric projects in Turkey, and the reservoir behind it spreads across roughly 675 square kilometres of the upper Euphrates. From the right viewpoints — the road north toward Pertek is the best — the lake looks almost Scandinavian, with steep brown ridges dropping straight into still blue water. It is the defining landscape of the region around Elazığ, and the reason the city exists in its modern form.
When the dam closed, the rising water drowned dozens of villages, hundreds of archaeological sites, and the original Roman road to Malatya. In the years before flooding, a UNESCO-led rescue operation raced to excavate what it could; many of the finds, spanning Hittite, Urartian, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, are now displayed in the Elazığ Archaeological Museum, which is far better than a provincial city has any right to expect.
In summer, boat trips run from several points along the shore. The easiest to reach are from Çitli, about 50 km north of Elazığ. The classic outing is the crossing to the small ferry town of Pertek, where the medieval Akkoyunlu castle sits on its own island in the lake — a genuinely photogenic day trip and the best way to feel the scale of the water. Bring a hat and water; the shores are exposed and there is little shade.