This Day, That Year: May 20

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On May 20, 2006, China finished building the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River, a milestone for the world's largest hydroelectric project, as seen in an item in China Daily.

The construction plan was passed by the National People's Congress in 1992 to provide flood control and hydroelectric power.

The 185-meter-high, 2,309-meter-long dam is often compared with the Great Wall in scale, with 28 million cubic meters of concrete poured.

Located on the Yangtze in Yichang, Hubei province, it is a multifunctional water-control system, with 32 hydropower turbogenerators, a five-tier ship lock and a shiplift.

It is designed to control floodwaters, generate electricity and help to regulate the river's shipping traffic.

Construction began in 1994, and the Yangtze was successfully dammed in 1997, marking the completion of the first stage of the project.

In June 2003, water storage reached 135 meters, allowing trial operations of two series of five-stage locks to begin. One month later, the dam's first generator went into operation. In 2010, water-storage reached 175 meters, its highest designed mark.

Starting in July 2012, the Three Gorges Dam began working at full capacity, as the last of its 32 large turbine generators was put into operation, realizing a combined generating capacity of 22.5 million kilowatts. The shiplift was successfully completed in 2016.

Nearly 1.4 million people were relocated to make way for the project.

The Baihetan hydropower station project is under construction on the Jinsha River, an upstream branch of the Yangtze. It will be the world's second-largest hydropower project, and is expected to be completed by 2022.

China has vowed to raise its installed capacity for hydropower, a cheaper and cleaner alternative to coal, to 380 gigawatts by 2020, as part of the country's effort to phase out polluting fossil fuels.