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Located near Aswan, the world famous High Dam was an engineering miracle
when it was built in the 1960s. It contains 18 times the material used in the
Great Pyramid of Cheops. The Dam is 11,811 feet long, 3215 feet thick at the
base and 364 feet tall. Today it provides irrigation and electricity for Egypt
and, together with the old Aswan Dam built by the British between 1898 and
1902`, 6km down river, wonderful views for visitors. From the top of the two
Mile long High Dam you can gaze across Lake Nasser, the huge lake created when
it was built, to Kalabsha temple in the south and the huge power station to the
north.
The High Dam created a 30% increase in the planted land in Egypt, and
raised the water table for the desert as far away as Algeria. The
electricity producing capability of the Dam doubled Egypt's available supply.
The lake is some 500 miles long and at the time it was built, if not now,
was the world's largest artificial lake.
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