Tarbela Dam (Urdu/Pashto: تربیلا بند) is an earth-filled dam on the Indus River in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Located in the Swabi and Haripur Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,[2] the dam is about 30 km (20 mi) from the city of Swabi, 105 km (65 mi) northwest of Islamabad, and 125 km (80 mi) east of Peshawar. The dam was completed in 1976 and was designed to store water from the Indus River for irrigation, flood control, and the generation of hydroelectric power.[3]
The dam is 143 metres (470 ft) high above the riverbed. It is the largest earth-filled dam in the world, and also the largest dam by structural volume.[4][5][6] The Tarbela Reservoir has a surface area of approximately 250 square kilometres (97 sq mi).