WUHAN, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The Three Gorges Dam at the world's largest hydropower project welcomed a record number of tourists in the first half of this year, according to the China Three Gorges Corporation.

The January-June period this year saw 1.5 million visitors, 50,000 more than the same period in 2019.

The Three Gorges Dam, China's largest industrial tourism site in the central Chinese province of Hubei, has experienced a significant rise in tourism since January, when approximately 65,000 people visited it during the Spring Festival holiday, up 260 percent year on year.

Featuring efficient water resource utilization, the project has played key roles in flood control and electricity generation along the Yangtze River basin. Having been generating electricity since 2003, the dam opened to the public in 2005.