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Alcántara dam

The 67th tallest dam in the world

130 m · 427 ft

The Alcántara Dam, also known as the José María de Oriol Dam, is a buttress dam on the Tagus River near Alcántara in the province of Cáceres, Spain. It is named after the politician and captain of the Spanish electricity industry José María de Oriol y Urquijo. The dam regulates much of the flow of the Tagus River, the longest of the Iberian Peninsula. It was built in 1969 and is the second largest reservoir in Western Europe. In 2024, a pumped-storage project was approved to use the Alcántara reservoir as the upper reservoir, and Cedillo as the lower, with around 100 m height difference serving two reversible turbines at a combined 440 MW. The Roman Alcántara Bridge is located 600 m downstream from the dam.

Dam data from Wikidata (CC0) plus curated additions. Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).

More dams in Spain

  1. Presa de Talarn86 m
  2. Saucelle Dam83 m
  3. Montejaque Dam83 m
  4. Miranda Dam80 m
  5. Mequinenza Dam79 m

Other tall dams worldwide

  1. Rogun Dam · Tajikistan335 m
  2. Shuangjiangkou Dam · China312 m
  3. Norak Dam · Tajikistan300 m
  4. Grande Dixence dam · Switzerland285 m
  5. Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam · Russia245 m
  6. Oroville Dam · United States234.7 m
  7. Bhakra Dam · India225.6 m
  8. Hoover Dam · United States221 m