Xiaolangdi Dam Project is situated at the outlet of the last valley in the middle Yellow River, 130 km downstream of Sanmenxia Dam and 128 km upstream of Huayuankou hydrographic station. The runoff and sediment transport at the dam site account for 91.2% and nearly 100% of the total amounts respectively. The Project consists of dam, flood release and silt discharge structures, and power facilities. The dam is a rockfilled structure with inner blanket and inclined clay core. The maximum dam height is 160 m, with a crest length of 1667 m, and the reservoir has a total storage capacity of 12.65 billion m³, and the installed capacity is 1800 MW.

The dam has an embankment volume of 50.73 million m³, and is founded on the alluvium, the maximum depth of which is 70 m below the river bed. The cutoff is 1.2 m thick and 82 m in maximum depth, which was then the deepest and thickest cutoff wall in China.

A total of 108 tunnels and caverns are arranged in a thin-mountain area of about 1 km² on the left bank, in which the surrounding rock stability is successfully solved. Among them, 3 diversion tunnels with a diameter of 14.5 m were converted into permanent orifice tunnels, and the multi-stage orifice technology was adopted to dissipate large amounts of energy within. The two-stage stilling basin at the outlets is 210 m long and 356 m wide, in which high-velocity flows from 10 tunnels conducts energy dissipation, which makes the largest combined stilling basin in the history of dam engineering in the world. Moreover, the underground powerhouse was the largest one in unfavorable geological conditions of sand shale in China at that time.

Xiaolangdi Dam Project has won multiple important international and domestic awards, such as National Gold Award for Excellent Engineering Investigation and Design, and International Rockfill Dam Milestone. Since the operation in 2000, the flood control standard for the lower Yellow River has been raised from 60-year to 1,000-year flood protection, and the threat of ice flood in the lower river reaches is basically eliminated. The Project has achieved great benefits in flood control (incl. ice control), sedimentation reduction, water supply, irrigation, power generation and ecological environment.