1
Jinping-I Dam
At 305 metres, Jinping-I is the tallest completed man-made dam in the world and the tallest arch dam ever built, curving across the Yalong River in Sichuan.
country: Chinatype: Concrete archriver: Yalong Rivercompleted: 2014
Top 10 Tallest Dams
The ten tallest completed dams on Earth, ranked by structural height from foundation to crest — a wall of concrete and rock led by China's 305-metre Jinping-I.
Quick answer: 1. Jinping-I Dam, 2. Nurek Dam, 3. Lianghekou Dam, 4. Xiaowan Dam, 5. Baihetan Dam, 6. Xiluodu Dam, 7. Grande Dixence Dam, 8. Enguri Dam, 9. Yusufeli Dam, 10. Vajont Dam.
These are the tallest dams humans have ever finished building, ranked by the height of the dam wall itself — foundation to crest — using the standard maintained by the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). The list runs from Jinping-I, the 305-metre arch dam in Sichuan that tops the table, down to Italy's Vajont Dam, whose wall still stands 261.6 metres tall decades after the disaster that emptied its reservoir. China dominates the modern top of the list, home to six of these ten walls, most finished within the last two decades on the Yalong, Lancang, and Jinsha rivers. But the older engineering marvels hold their ground: Tajikistan's Nurek Dam is still the tallest earth-fill embankment on the planet, and Switzerland's Grande Dixence remains the tallest gravity dam ever built. If you want to know which dams are the sheer tallest — and how a Swiss alpine wall stacks up against China's mega-projects — this is the ranking.
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Structural height (m)
305
Jinping-I Dam 300
Nurek Dam 295
Lianghekou Dam 292
Xiaowan Dam 289
Baihetan Dam 285.5
Xiluodu Dam 285
Grande Dixence Dam 271.5
Enguri Dam 270
Yusufeli Dam 261.6
Vajont Dam The ranking
2
Nurek Dam
The tallest earth-fill embankment dam on the planet, Nurek held the outright world height record until 2013 and still stands second overall at 300 metres.
country: Tajikistantype: Embankment (earth-fill)river: Vakhsh Rivercompleted: 1980
3
Lianghekou Dam
China's tallest embankment dam, a 295-metre clay-core rockfill wall on the Yalong River that became fully operational in 2022.
country: Chinatype: Embankment (rock-fill)river: Yalong Rivercompleted: 2022
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4
Xiaowan Dam
One of the world's tallest arch dams at 292 metres, spanning the Lancang (upper Mekong) River in Yunnan.
country: Chinatype: Concrete archriver: Lancang Rivercompleted: 2010
5
Baihetan Dam
A 289-metre arch dam on the Jinsha River whose power station ranks among the largest hydroelectric plants in the world; first generating in 2021.
country: Chinatype: Concrete archriver: Jinsha Rivercompleted: 2021
6
Xiluodu Dam
A 285.5-metre arch dam on the Jinsha River backing one of the highest-capacity hydroelectric stations ever built.
country: Chinatype: Concrete archriver: Jinsha Rivercompleted: 2013
7
Grande Dixence Dam
The tallest gravity dam in the world and the tallest dam in Europe, this 285-metre concrete wall sits high in the Swiss Alps.
country: Switzerlandtype: Concrete gravityriver: Dixence Rivercompleted: 1961
8
Enguri Dam
A 271.5-metre arch dam in Georgia that was long the tallest concrete arch dam in the world before China's mega-dams overtook it.
country: Georgiatype: Concrete archriver: Enguri Rivercompleted: 1978
9
Yusufeli Dam
The tallest dam in Turkey, a 270-metre double-curvature arch dam on the Coruh River that became operational in 2022.
country: Turkeytype: Concrete archriver: Coruh Rivercompleted: 2022
10
Vajont Dam
A 261.6-metre double-curvature arch dam in the Italian Alps; its reservoir has been disused since the 1963 landslide disaster, but the wall stands intact and remains one of the tallest ever built.
country: Italytype: Concrete archriver: Vajont Rivercompleted: 1959
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Full comparison
| # | Name | country | type | river | completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jinping-I Dam | China | Concrete arch | Yalong River | 2014 |
| 2 | Nurek Dam | Tajikistan | Embankment (earth-fill) | Vakhsh River | 1980 |
| 3 | Lianghekou Dam | China | Embankment (rock-fill) | Yalong River | 2022 |
| 4 | Xiaowan Dam | China | Concrete arch | Lancang River | 2010 |
| 5 | Baihetan Dam | China | Concrete arch | Jinsha River | 2021 |
| 6 | Xiluodu Dam | China | Concrete arch | Jinsha River | 2013 |
| 7 | Grande Dixence Dam | Switzerland | Concrete gravity | Dixence River | 1961 |
| 8 | Enguri Dam | Georgia | Concrete arch | Enguri River | 1978 |
| 9 | Yusufeli Dam | Turkey | Concrete arch | Coruh River | 2022 |
| 10 | Vajont Dam | Italy | Concrete arch | Vajont River | 1959 |
How we ranked this
Dams are ranked by structural height in metres: the vertical distance from the lowest point of the dam's foundation to its crest, the measurement ICOLD uses to compare dams of every construction type on a like-for-like basis. Only completed, operational, man-made dams are included; natural dams (formed by landslides or lava flows) and dams still under construction are excluded. Where a dam's reservoir is disused but the wall stands intact (Vajont), the structure still qualifies on height. Rank 1 is the tallest. Height figures are drawn from Wikipedia's structural-height-ranked list of tallest dams and each dam's individual reference page, cross-checked against Guinness World Records for the embankment record.
FAQ
What is the tallest dam in the world?
Jinping-I Dam in Sichuan, China, is the tallest completed man-made dam at 305 metres (about 1,001 feet) of structural height. It is also the tallest arch dam ever built, curving across the Yalong River.
How is dam height measured?
The standard used here is structural height: the vertical distance from the lowest point of the dam's foundation to its crest, as defined by the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). This lets dams of every type — arch, gravity, and embankment — be compared on the same basis.
What is the tallest dam in the United States or Europe?
Europe's tallest is the Grande Dixence Dam in Switzerland at 285 metres, which is also the tallest gravity dam in the world. No U.S. dam makes this global top ten; the tallest in the United States is the Oroville Dam in California at about 235 metres.
Why is China's Three Gorges Dam not on this list?
This ranking is by height, not size or power output. The Three Gorges Dam is famous as one of the world's largest hydroelectric projects, but its wall is only about 181 metres tall — far short of the 261-metre-plus threshold needed to reach this top ten.
Sources
- List of tallest dams — Wikipedia (structural-height ranked table, ICOLD foundation-to-crest definition)
- Jinping-I Dam — Wikipedia (305 m arch dam, Yalong River)
- Nurek Dam — Wikipedia (300 m earth-fill embankment, Vakhsh River)
- Lianghekou Dam — Wikipedia (295 m rockfill, Yalong River)
- Yusufeli Dam — Wikipedia (270 m arch dam, Coruh River, operational 2022)
- Grande Dixence Dam — Wikipedia (285 m concrete gravity dam, completed 1961)
- Tallest embankment dam — Guinness World Records (Nurek, 300 m)