The Ming Tombs Reservoir was built at the beginning of 1958, and was successfully completed on June 30th of that year. The reservoir area is 20 times that of Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace, with a total storage capacity of more than 60 million cubic meters. The reservoir dam is built between Mangshan Mountain and Hanbaoshan Mountain, and it is of inclined wall type, with a total length of 627m, a height of 29m, a bottom width of179m and a top width of 7.5m.. On the outer slope of the dam, there are five characters "Ming Tombs Reservoir" inscribed by President Mao Zedong, which are inlaid with white marble on the purple andesite slope protection, which is very spectacular. At the top of the dam, a beautiful veranda with classical architectural style was built, with handicrafts, cold drinks shops and snack bars. There are cruise docks at both ends of the dam, which provides convenience for tourists to take a boat.
The original building was built to support the water use of nearby cities.