Three Gorges Dam

China's leaders have long dreamed of taming the mighty Yangtze River. The founder of the Chinese Republic, Sun Yatsen, first proposed the idea as a response to the flooding which has blighted the lives of those living along the river for thousands of years. Chairman Mao wrote a poem in which he described a "great wall of stone" that would mean "a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges". But work on a dam did not actually begin until 1993 under then President Jiang Zemin.

And with the main wall of the Three Gorges Dam now finished, the dream is getting closer all the time. The wall stretches for more than 2km across the Yangtze and is the largest part of this multi-billion dollar scheme. It is not the end of the project - there are still turbines and other equipment to be installed - but it is a major milestone on the way to finishing the dam. When it is finished it will be the largest hydro-electric power project in the world, its 26 generators pumping out 85bn kW-hours of electricity a year.

Adapted from BBC News May 19th 2006

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