The Three Gorges Dam and the Yangtze Cruise: Engineering, Displacement, and the River Landscape

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River was completed in 2006 after 17 years of construction. It is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world by installed capacity (22,500 megawatts), and the reservoir it created - the Three Gorges Reservoir, stretching 660 km upstream to Chongqing - flooded 1,000 towns and villages and required the relocation of 1.3 million people. It is one of the largest engineering projects in human history by most measures, and it changed the Three Gorges region permanently. The gorges themselves still exist - the water level rose by 80-100 metres, but the walls of Qutang, Wu, and Xiling gorges are 300-600 metres high; the cliffs are still dramatic even with the higher water - but the towns and cultural sites at river level that defined the old gorges landscape are gone.

This is relevant background for a visit: you are seeing the gorges in a form significantly different from what travellers saw 30 years ago, and from what Chinese literature and painting depicted for centuries. Whether that changes the experience depends on your expectations.

The Dam Site at Sandouping

The dam is located at Sandouping, 38 km west of Yichang city. Yichang is the downstream end of the gorges and the main transport hub for visitors approaching from east China.

The dam visitor site has been developed into a significant tourist attraction by the Chinese government. Admission to the scenic area costs CNY 130-175 depending on which viewing zones you access. The site includes:

Dam Crest Observation Deck: You can walk partway along the top of the dam structure; the scale is more comprehensible from up close than from any photograph. The dam is 2,335 metres wide and 185 metres tall. The upstream reservoir stretches back further than visible; the downstream side drops to the river far below.

Five-Step Ship Lock: The dam includes a five-stage ship lock system that raises vessels 113 metres from the downstream river level to the reservoir. Passenger and cargo ships transit through it in a process taking 3-4 hours for the full passage. Watching a large river ferry or cargo vessel transit the locks from the viewing area above is one of the more memorable things to do at the site - the sheer scale of the locks (each chamber is 280 metres long and 35 metres wide) and the slow mechanical process of raising a vessel the height of a 40-storey building by water pressure alone has a particular appeal.

Three Gorges Museum at Yichang: The Yichang Three Gorges Museum (free entry, in Yichang city centre) is the best place to understand the pre-dam Yangtze - photographs and documents from before the flooding, models of submerged towns, maps of the resettlement areas, and the engineering history of the project. Allow 2 hours. Worth doing before visiting the dam site.

The Yangtze River Cruise

The classic way to experience the Three Gorges is a river cruise from Chongqing downstream to Yichang (4-5 days) or the reverse. The gorges section of the cruise (Fengjie to Yichang, approximately 200 km) takes one to two days depending on the vessel. Most cruise packages include the Shennong Stream tributary excursion (traditional oar-powered small boats into the narrow Shennong valley, with boatmen using ropes against the current in the shallower sections) and an optional stop at the Lesser Three Gorges (Daning River, a tributary of similar dramatic geography at smaller scale, sometimes less crowded than the main gorges).

Cruise operators and prices: Yangtze River cruises are served by both dedicated tourist vessels (the “Victoria” cruises, Century Cruises, President Cruises, and similar international-marketed products) and Chinese domestic passenger ferries. International tourist cruises typically run CNY 3,000-8,000 per person (approximately $420-1,100 USD) for the Chongqing-Yichang 4-day route in a standard cabin; premier cabins with balconies run CNY 8,000-15,000 and up. The Chinese domestic ferries (run by operators like China Yangtze Cruises) are substantially cheaper - CNY 800-2,000 for a bunk cabin - but services and facilities are more basic.

Cruise direction: Downstream (Chongqing to Yichang) is more common and slightly faster; upstream takes longer due to the current. Downstream boats also transit the ship locks in the descent direction, which some argue gives better views of the lock chambers.

What the cruise actually looks like: The Yangtze gorges section has 300-600-metre sheer limestone cliffs rising immediately from the water. The colour of the water is turbid brown-green (this is normal for the Yangtze; it has always carried heavy silt loads). In the sections immediately after heavy rain, visibility can be low due to mist and haze. The best light is morning; the cliffs on the east faces catch morning sun. Autumn (September-November) and spring (March-May) give the clearest weather.

Fengdu Ghost City

On the river approximately halfway between Chongqing and the gorges is Fengdu, where the “Ghost City” is located: a collection of Ming and Qing dynasty temples and shrines associated with the Chinese afterlife tradition, originally on the riverside hills. The old Fengdu town was submerged; the temples were moved and reconstructed higher on Mingshan Hill. The site is frankly commercial - entry CNY 120, cable car additional - and the reconstructions are not all of equal quality. But the original temples that survived relocation (the Ming Guo Temple complex) have genuine 14th-century elements, and the iconography of Chinese underworld mythology is fascinating if you engage with it rather than treating it as a backdrop for photographs.

Most cruises include a Fengdu stop; it can also be visited as a day trip from Chongqing (2 hours by express boat).

Getting to Yichang and Chongqing

Yichang is connected to Wuhan (2.5 hours) and beyond by high-speed rail on the Yichang-Wuhan line. From Beijing, Yichang is 5-6 hours by high-speed rail with a change at Wuhan. Yichang is also the final downstream port of the Three Gorges cruise; most downstream cruise passengers end in Yichang and travel onward by train.

Chongqing is a major hub city with direct high-speed rail connections to Beijing (8-11 hours), Shanghai (12 hours), and Chengdu (1 hour). It is also the base for cruises heading downstream. Chongqing itself is worth a night or two: a massive hillside city of 30+ million people on the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, famous for its spicy hot pot cuisine (a distinct local variant from Sichuan hotpot), its network of stairs and funiculars connecting lower city and upper city, and the historic Ciqikou old town district.

Practical Considerations

Visitor facilities at the dam site are entirely in Chinese, with limited English signage and almost no English-speaking guides at the site level. Independent international visitors should consider hiring a guide in Yichang (available through hotels and travel agencies at CNY 300-500 per day) or booking through a China-based tour operator. The dam’s interior mechanical areas and power generation halls require a special access permit that most visitors do not obtain; what you see as a standard visitor is the exterior of the dam and the observation decks.

Photography of the dam infrastructure has been progressively relaxed but there are still restricted areas; follow signage and guard instructions. Phone and camera are fine in the standard visitor areas.