The number of tourists to China's Three Gorges Project site this year reached one million by November 26, a historical record for the new attraction.

Statistics from the Three Gorges Project Travel Development Co., Ltd. said that a total of five million tourists have visited the Three Gorges project since the dam area was opened to tourists in 1996, and the site is expected to pocket 170 million yuan (US$21 million) from tourism this year.

Zhang Yanping, manager of the company's marketing department, said the number of tourists to the Three Gorges once dropped greatly in 1997 when the Yangtze River was dammed, but it then resumed growing year by year with some new tourism sites appearing in the dam area.

The Three Gorges also attracts many foreigners. During the January-October this year, the number of overseas tourists to the Three Gorges increased 73 percent over the same period of the last year, to account for about 14 percent of the total, said Zhang.

Launched in 1993, the Three Gorges Project, including a 185-meter-high dam and 26 generators on both banks of the Yangtze, is being built in three phases on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, China's longest. The preparations and construction of the first phase were carried out between 1993 and 1997.

After ten years of construction, the Three Gorges Project has become China's largest industrial scenic spot with several functions of flood-prevention, electric generation, tourism and navigation, attracting more and more tourists.

(Xinhua News Agency November 29, 2005)