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 Dam 1947. After the 1949 Communist takeover, Mao Zedong supported the project, but began the Gezhouba Dam project nearby first, and economic problems including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution slowed progress. After the 1954 Yangtze River Floods, in 1956, Mao Zedong authored "Swimming", a poem about his fascination with a dam on the Yangtze River. In 1958, after the Hundred Flowers Campaign, some engineers who spoke out against the project were imprisoned. During the 1980s, the idea of a dam reemerged. The National People's Congress approved the dam in 1992: out of 2,633 delegates, 1,767 voted in favour,