These Are the Largest Dams in the World

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Dams! The mere mention of the term and you imagine these large overwhelming structures. But not all dams are massive. As of 2021, ICOLD's World Register of Dams contains 58,700 large dams on record. In this video, we bring the largest of these already large dams and we dare you not to be impressed. 

There’s the Gardiner Dam in Canada which is among the largest embankment dams in the world. It’s 210 ft tall (64 m) and 16,700 ft wide (5,090 m). The Nurek Dam in Tajikistan is the second tallest dam after the Jinping-I Dam, standing at 984 feet tall (300 m). It accounts for about 75% of Tajikistan's electricity needs. Then there is the Guri Dam in Venezuela that can generate up to 10,235 MW of electricity. It accounts for about 73% of the country's power.

The Three Gorges Dam in China is the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant. It has a capacity of 22,500 MW. Fun fact: When the dam is at full capacity, its reservoir holds 42 billion tons of water which is actually enough to slow the planet’s rotation, increasing the length of a day by 0.06 microseconds. 

Has this list made you curious about the attributes of the rest of the world’s biggest dams? Then watch our video to find out more.