Three Gorges Dam

Sandouping lies in Yiling District, 40 kilometres upstream of central Yichang, inside the reach of the river known as Xiling Gorge. The dam is a concrete gravity structure 2,335 metres long, with its crest at 185 metres above sea level, built in a valley of hard granite. Its reservoir reaches more than 600 kilometres upstream, averages 1.1 kilometres in width and holds 39.3 billion cubic metres of water. Thirty-two main turbines of 700 MW, with two smaller sets for the plant itself, give the station 22,500 MW of installed capacity. Shipping passes through the staircase locks beside the wall or, more recently, by a vertical ship lift that lifts whole barges out of the river.