The Three Gorges Dam's foundation was laid in 1994 with construction concluding in 2006, making it approximately 18 years in the development and construction phase.

In July 2024, heavy rains caused the water level in the Three Gorges Dam to rise to 161,000 meters—the highest for any July on record—and water was discharged through nine flood gates despite which severe floods persisted along the Yangtze, making it the biggest flooding event since historical records began.

Potential dam failure would put the lives of more than 400 million people living around the Yangtze River in danger.

Failure of the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric power station, would cause massive power outages affecting Central and Eastern China and Guangdong Province.

The Yangtze River basin produces approximately half of China's agricultural output and flows through numerous major cities including Wuhan, which has a population exceeding 10 million.

Dam failure would threaten the very existence of major cities downstream such as Wuhan and Shanghai and would prove catastrophic for the Chinese economy.

In 2020, the Three Gorges Dam set a world record for highest annual power production by a single hydropower station after generating 11.8 billion kilowatt hours.

Ensuring the Three Gorges Dam's safety remains a top priority for authorities, though the complexity of managing such a massive infrastructure project amidst extreme weather conditions poses ongoing challenges for long-term stability.

The Three Gorges Dam cost China $31 billion to construct and became operational recently, yet experts are concerned it could collapse, which would be extraordinary given the recent investment and timeline.

Construction of the Three Gorges Dam required relocation of approximately 1.4 million people to clear necessary land, causing significant social and environmental disruptions.

The primary purposes of the Three Gorges Dam construction were flood control, hydroelectric power generation, and improved navigation along the Yangtze River.

A hydrologist was cited in media mentioning the discovery of cracks and substandard concrete in the Three Gorges Dam, but Chinese media quickly dismissed these claims, attributing viral images to algorithm errors in Google Maps.

The Three Gorges Dam is 1.4 miles long, is a concrete gravity dam, boasts 34 turbogenerators, and has an installed power plant capacity of 22.5 GW.

The Three Gorges Dam features a spillway 1,584 feet long with powerhouses located on both left and right sides of the dam structure.

The Three Gorges Dam became operational in 2003 and is a crucial source of electricity for Central and Eastern China as well as Guangdong Province in the South.

The Three Gorges Dam is owned and operated by China Three Gorges Corporation.

By using the Three Gorges Dam instead of coal-based power plants, China avoided using 31.7 million tons of coal and successfully eliminated 86.7 million tons of carbon dioxide, 20,600 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 19,000 tons of nitrogen oxide.

The Three Gorges Dam received its largest flood peak in August 2020 when torrential rains increased dam inflows to alarmingly high levels, though the Chinese government has denied any danger and the dam passed power generation and flood control tests in November 2020.

Experts doubt the efficacy of official government assessments of the dam despite passed tests, because they are worried about many underlying issues that China has been ignoring.

Before construction of the Three Gorges Dam began, it was estimated that thousands of cities, towns, and villages would be either partially or completely submerged by the reservoir.