China's Three Gorges Dam spans which river?

China’s Three Gorges Dam spans which river? The answer is the Yangtze River.

The dam stands near Sandouping in Hubei province, downstream from the Three Gorges. It crosses the Yangtze, China’s longest river, and creates the Three Gorges Reservoir. The project combines flood control, hydroelectric generation and improved navigation along a historically difficult stretch of the river.

Construction began in 1994, and the dam’s concrete structure was completed in 2006. Its generating station became fully operational in 2012. The plant has 32 main turbines rated at 700 megawatts each, plus two smaller units, for a total installed capacity of 22,500 megawatts.

The Yangtze is sometimes called the Chang Jiang in Chinese. It should not be confused with the Yellow River, another major Chinese waterway farther north. The Three Gorges project is famous not only for its scale but also for the communities, archaeological sites and landscapes displaced by the reservoir’s creation.