Glen Canyon Dam

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The Glen Canyon Dam is 216 m (710 feet) high and 475 m (1,560 feet) wide. It is on the Colorado River in the northeast of Arizona and the key unit of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River storage project, a multipurpose plan, undertaken in 1956, to control the flow of the upper Colorado and its tributaries and to aid in the development of the rugged, remote upper Colorado River basin. The Glen Canyon Dam is one of the world's largest concrete dams. It is for example larger in bulk, though not in height, than the Hoover Dam.

The Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1963 and dedicated in 1966 after completion of its power-generation facilities. It regulates the flow of the upper Colorado and its tributaries and has produced hydroelectricity since 1964. The dam sharply reduced the seasonal flow of the Colorado downstream, dramatically altering the ecology of the river in the Grand Canyon. Changes in water releases have been experimented within an attempt to ameliorate the effects of the dam.

Lake Powell was formed by the dam. It extends 299 km (186 miles) upstream into southern Utah. The lake was named after the American explorer John W. Powell, who mapped and named the canyon in 1870. This lake is the nucleus of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Downstream is the Glen Canyon Bridge, which is 387 m (1,271 feet) long and 213 m (700 feet) high. It is one of the world's longest and highest steel-arch bridges.

The Glen Canyon Dam is 390 km north of Phoenix and 3050 km west of Washington D.C.