The Three Gorges Dam is a megastructure in every sense of its word. The dam is around 2.3 kilometers (1.4 miles) long, which is 5 times longer than the Hoover Dam, and 185 meters (594 feet) tall, which is more than a hundred feet taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam came at a great cost. It displaced around 1.3 million people, flooded archaeological and cultural sites, and changed the ecology of the region. But the completion of the Three Gorges Dam has also had a positive impact. It has helped control floods on the Yangtze River, where periodic flooding has caused millions of deaths in the 20th century alone. The installed powered capacity of the dam is equivalent to 20 Hoover Dams or three times the power capacity of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station, which as of 2018, is the largest nuclear power station ever constructed by power capacity.

The name "Itaipu" is named after an island near the site and means "the sounding stone" in the Guarani language. In 2016, the Itaipu Dam produced 103.1 TWh of energy and set the world record for most energy ever produced in a year by any hydroelectric power plant.

Xiluodu Dam is the second largest hydroelectric dam in China after only the Three Gorges Dam. The construction of the dam displaced around 180,000 people but reduced the consumption of about 41 million tons of coal per year.

The Venezuelan government mandates that most of the country's power need come from renewable energy so that it could export as much fossil fuel as possible. So even though Venezuela is a fossil fuel rich country, as of 2006 more than 74% of Venezuela's electricy needs are met by renewables like hydroelectric power. In 2007, Guri Dam alone supplied more than a third of Venezuela's electricity.

The name Tucuruí comes from the Tupí language and means "grasshopper's water". The dam was the first large-scale hydroelectric project in the Amazon rainforest and produces enough electricity to power 13 million homes.

The Grand Coulee Dam is the largest hydroelectric power station in the United States and produces more power than 3 Hoover Dams. The Grand Coulee Dam also made possible the Columbia Basin Project, the largest water reclamation project in the United States. The irrigation net work supplies water to over 670,000 acres of land with potential for 1,1000,000 acres. As of 2014, the Grand Coulee Dam generates an annual value of over USD $1.27 billion in irrigated crops, $1 billion in power production, $50 million in recreation, and $20 million in flood damage prevention.

The Xiangjiaba Dam is the third largest hydroelectric dam in China. Aside from electricty generation, the reservoir created by the dam provides enough water to irrigate 3.76 million square meters of farmland in Sichuan and Yunnan.

Longtam can literally be translated as "Dragon Shoal". At 216.2 meters (709.3 ft) tall, as of 2018 it is the tallest roller-compacted gravity dam in the world.

The Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam is the largest hydroelectric power station in Russia. More than 70% of its generated electricity powers four smelters in Siberia. The dam can withstand earthquakes up to 8 on the Richter scale. Nonetheless in 2009, the hydroelectric plant suffered a catastrophic accident that caused the deaths of 75 people and halted power generation at the facility. The hydroelectric plant was not fully repaired until 2014.

The Krasnoyarsk Dam supplies most of its power to an aluminum plant. After its completion in 1971, the dam's hydroelectric power station was largest power plant of any kind in the world until the Grand Coulee reached 6,181 MW in 1983. The dam is also a landmark symbol of the region of Krasnoyarsk and is featured on the Russian 10-ruble banknote.