Modern day China's answer to the great civil engineering projects of the emperors, the Three Gorges Dam creates a wall across the mighty Yangzi. The largest electricity generating plant of any kind in the world, it stands 185 meters tall, its great walls (115 meters thick at the bottom and 40 at the top) holding back the 600 kilometer long reservoir beyond.

An observation deck at the top offers vistors a bird's eye view of the mammoth project. For those continuing on by boat, part of the experience will also include ascending in one of its great locks.

Conceived by Sun Yat-Sen back in 1919, work began on preliminary plans for the dam under Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Government. Interrupted first by the Japanese invasion of 1944 and later by the Chinese Civil War, plans got back underway with the support of Mao Zedong, but it was slow progress with the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution creating severe economic and social problems. The idea resurfaced in the 1980s and was approved by the National People's Congress in 1992. Construction began two years later and is expected to be fully completed by 2011.

Undoubtedly a historic feat of engineering and an economic success thus far, the project has been surrounded by controversy. Many question the wisdom of flooding such an enormous area, destroying countless historical and archaeological sites and displacing 1.3 million people from their homes. Long term results of the significant ecological changes wrought by the dam still remain to be seen.

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