The World’s Largest Dams: An Overview
Dams
The world’s largest dams are listed in the ICOLD (International Commission on Large Dams) register, which indicates that there are currently 61,988 large dams built worldwide, capable of storing 7,108 million acre-feet or 8,767 cubic kilometers of water. It is important to note that a dam is classified as “large” if it is over 50 feet tall or can store more than 3 million cubic meters of water.
According to the ICOLD register, there are only 183 large dams constructed in Pakistan.
The top three countries with the most large dams are:
- China with 24,089,
- USA with 10,158,
- India with 4,540.
This means that more than half of the world’s large dams are found in these three countries alone.
Other countries with thousands of large dams include:
- Japan with 3,135,
- Turkey with 1,902,
- Canada with 1,440,
- South Africa with 1,428,
- South Korea with 1,359,
- Brazil with 1,280,
- Mexico with 1,107,
- Spain with 1,066.
More than half of the world’s dams are used for irrigation purposes.
