Ankara River, is a small river that runs through the city of Ankara

Ankara

Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. Because of long time exposure to sewage

Sewage

Sewage is water-carried waste, in solution or suspension, that is intended to be removed from a community. Also known as wastewater, it is more than 99% water and is characterized by volume or rate of flow, physical condition, chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains...

 and industrial pollutants, it is no longer viable as a water source for irrigation even though it is still used for irrigation down stream, and causes cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

 and other diseases in the city. During hot days, the smell of sewage from the river makes this environmental disaster even more obvious. There are World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

 funded projects to clean it up.

The river splits Ankara almost in half and crosses through many neighborhoods and the city landfill. There are many bridges built over it throughout the city and in some instances it is completely covered and encased in a tunnel.

History

The city was founded in the stone ages presumably because of the river. Hittites

Hittites

The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia.They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c...

 settled in Ankara

Ankara

Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....

 4000 years ago on the banks of the river. Alexander the Great conquered the city in 334 B.C. and established an important trading center on the river. The Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 emperor Augustus

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

 incorporated the city to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and continued trade near this river city. The city later became Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 but was lost to the Turks

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 in 1073. Tamerlane fought Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 Sultan Bayezid I

Bayezid I

Bayezid I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1389 to 1402. He was the son of Murad I and Valide Sultan Gülçiçek Hatun.-Biography:Bayezid was born in Edirne and spent his youth in Bursa, where he received a high-level education...

 near the river at the Battle of Ankara

Battle of Ankara

The Battle of Ankara or Battle of Angora, fought on July 20, 1402, took place at the field of Çubuk between the forces of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I and the Turko-Mongol forces of Timur, ruler of the Timurid Empire. The battle was a major victory for Timur, and it led to a period of crisis for...

. During the battle, Tamerlane diverted all the water from one of its tributaries the Çubuk creek, which left Bayezid's army who was downstream without water, and won the battle.

Clean-Up Effort

In response to the foul smell and disease emanating from the river, the city tasked the City Canalization Administration with a clean-up effort in 2006. Their plan was to join the river with the sewage system. All the water will be directed to the sewage system, the river will be covered completely in certain locations, and the only water left running through the river will be that of any precipitation. The plan will also eliminate the polluted irrigation problem downstream since the river itself will be dried up.

For the moment, Ankara River is a tributary

Tributary

A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

 of the Sakarya River.