The Cingino Dam is a gravity

masonry dam Masonry dams are dams made out of masonrymainly stone and brick, sometimes joined with mortar. They are either the gravity or the arch-gravity type. The largest masonry dam in the World is Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, in ...

located southwest of

Antrona Schieranco Antrona Schieranco is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in the Italian region Piedmont, located about northeast of Turin and about northwest of Verbania Verbania (, , ) is the most populous ''comune'' (munic ...

Valle Antrona Valle Antrona (Antrona Valley) is a valley of the Alps, situated in the Pennine range. The valley is drained by the Ovesca, a tributary of the Toce at Villadossola. The highest mountain in the valley is the Pizzo d'Andolla (). There are severa ...

Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola The province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola (, ) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Piedmont region of Italy. It was created in 1992 through the fusion of three geographical areas which had previously been part of the province of Novara. The ar ...

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. The dam creates Lago Cingino (or Cingino reservoir) which is fed by the Antigine and Troncone streams. The reservoir has a surface area of and is maximum above sea level, typically . It is one of five reservoirs within a

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

complex in the Valle Antrona and helps supply the Campliccioli Power Plant with water for power production. The dam became an internet sensation due to pictures of Alpine Ibex that climb up its steep downstream face in order to lick salt off the stones. A video shared by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's Forces of Nature with Brian Cox has been viewed over 208 million times as of May 2022. Despite the picturesque setting,

Atlas Obscura ''Atlas Obscura'' is an United States, American-based travel and exploration company. It was founded in 2009 by author Joshua Foer and documentary filmmaker/author Dylan Thuras. It catalogs unusual and obscure travel destinations via professiona ...

describes the dam as "otherwise unremarkable."

References

{{reflist Dams in Italy Gravity dams Dams completed in 1930 Masonry dams