Three Gorges assisted Yu the Great in controling the waters and guiding boatmen. The Xiling Gorge comprises a series of famous gorges, including Military Book and Sword Gorge, Yellow Cow Gorge, and Lantern's Shadow Gorge. In 1919, after Sun Yat-sen had put forward the concept in the Plan for Industrial Development of his (), experts investigated damming the Three Gorges, but it was not until 1994 that the Three Gorges project officially started. In 1944, the Nationalist government recruited John L. Savage, the Chief Engineer of the United States Bureau of Reclamation, who came to China and made a 10-day investigation of
Three Gorges Dam from the dam to the main urban area of Chongqing by 2020. However, the municipal government explained that the relocation is due to urbanization, rather than the dam, and people involved included other areas of the municipality. Allegedly, funds for relocating 13,000 farmers around Gaoyang disappeared after being sent to the local government, leaving residents without compensation. The long reservoir flooded some 1,300 archaeological sites and altered the appearance of the Three Gorges as the water level rose over . Cultural and historical relics are being moved to higher ground as they are discovered, but the flooding inevitably covered undiscovered