Chinese experts estimate the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River to be about 2 million years old. But it took Chinese officials and engineers just about 15 years to alter the region permanently with the construction and operation of the world's largest hydro-electric project - the 185-m tall and 2,335m-wide Three Gorges Dam. Construction began in December 1994, with an estimated price tag of US$25 billion. This figure likely did not include the heavy social and environmental toll that the project exacted on the region. By June 2008, an estimated 1.24 million residents had been relocated while two cities, 11 counties, 116 towns and hundreds of villages were flooded after the dam began storing water. [Sandouping June 2003]
