Baihetan Dam plant in the world, after the Three Gorges Dam. When finished, it will be the third largest dam in China and the fourth in the world, in terms of dam volume. Construction on the dam began in 2008 and is expected to be complete in 2021. Baihetan Dam The Baihetan Dam () is a large hydroelectric dam under construction on the Jinsha River, a tributary of the Yangtze River in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, in the southwest of China. The dam is a 277 m tall double-curvature arch dam with a crest elevation of 827 m. Its width will be
Three Gorges with terrain lowering gradually from south to north. The western and eastern parts of the area, between the southern mountains and Bashan Mountain (), in the north, are comparatively lower; and in the past, the river flowed to the east through the region. As the crust of the locality continued to rise, the river's erosion intensified, and the Three Gorges were carved. The natural beauty of the Three Gorges along the Yangtze River has been appreciated for hundreds of years. In the Northern Wei (北魏) dynasty, Li Daoyuan (郦道元) described them in his work "Shui Jing Zhu" (水经注), or the