Tabqa Dam
Dam and hydroelectric scheme, Lake Assad reservoir 14.1 km3 with a surface area of 674 km2; installed power not established in Syria.
Operational
Landmark Lake Assad holds 14 km3 behind it, and filling it in 1975 cut the Euphrates reaching Iraq by a quarter.
The record
- Country
- Syria
- Location
- Tabqa
- Coordinates
- 35.874, 38.568
- Technology
- Dam and hydroelectric scheme
- Capacity
- Lake Assad reservoir 14.1 km3 with a surface area of 674 km2; installed power not established
- Capital cost
- cost not disclosed; current power generation not established
- Stage
- Operational
- Owner or client
- —
- Contractor
- —
- Operator
- —
- Finance
- —
- Award or start year
- 1973
- Commissioned
- 1975
Record last checked 2026-10-11.
History
- 1973
Dam constructed on the Euphrates
- 1975
Reservoir filled, cutting flow to Iraq by a quarter
- 2026-01
Syrian government forces take Tabqa and the adjacent dam
- 2026-05
Three spillway gates opened for the first time in more than three decades as inflows reached about 2,200 m3/s
Sources
13 references
Every field in the record above is taken from the references below. A field that none of them confirms prints as a dash.
- FAO AQUASTAT, Country profile Syrian Arab Republic, version 2008. openknowledge.fao.org.
- The largest dam is the Al Tabka dam near Ar Raqqah on the Euphrates, forming Al Assad Lake with a storage capacity of 14.1 km3 and a surface area of 674 km2; Syria constructed the Tabqa Dam in 1973 and filled it in 1975, and the filling cut the quantity of water entering Iraq by 25 percent.
- ESCWA and BGR, Inventory of Shared Water Resources in Western Asia, Chapter 1, Euphrates River Basin (2013). waterinventory.org.
- Table 3 gives Syria, Tabqa, 1975, 14,000 million m3, for hydropower and irrigation, also called the Euphrates Dam or the Revolution Dam and considered the largest earth-fill dam in the world.
- World Bank, Syria Emergency Water Security and Resilient Services Project (P515199), Project Information Document (19 Mar 2026). documents1.worldbank.org.
- The Water Resources Commission oversees national water resources apart from the Euphrates, which falls under the General Organization of Euphrates Dam.
- Al Jazeera, Syria announces ceasefire agreement with Kurd-led SDF after heavy fighting (18 Jan 2026). aljazeera.com.
- Reports the seizure of Tabqa and its adjacent dam.
- Installed power is left out: no UN or institutional source opened gives a megawatt figure, and the two figures in circulation, 880 MW and 824 MW, could not be reconciled.
- Coordinates from OpenStreetMap.
- Control has changed hands and current generation was not established.
- IFRC, Syria: Euphrates River floods 2026, DREF operation MDRSY019 (9 Jun 2026). reliefweb.int.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
Since mid-May 2026 inflow reached about 2,200 m3/s, and three spillway gates at the Euphrates Dam were opened for the first time in more than three decades.