The Hoover Dam is the highest (726Feet) concrete dam over the whole western hemisphere; it is an American historic landmark. There are many Hoover Dam tours that operate daily from Las Vegas, which is located 30 miles north west of the dam. This dam combines the strength of two common forms of dams, arched dam and gravity dam. It curves the upstream in a lessening manner and guides most of the river water against the rock walls that provides compressing force to the dam. Large volume of internal feel up is required for a gravity dam. However, huge internal fill is not essential for an arch-gravity dam, but they are mostly huge structure of reinforced concrete that defends the thrust of water with the support of their weight and pushes them down by the gravitational force.
It is the biggest tourist attraction in and around Las Vegas. It has no mailing address, man made artificial reservoir Lake Mead was created behind the dam. It is 12 miles east of Boulder City of Nevada, on Route 93(it is a part of I-515). You can get a good direction from the map on the Hoover Dam website. If you want to visit this historic monument on your own from Las Vegas, you take I-515 South in the direction of Boulder City and continue your drive 20 miles toward Boulder city. I-515 ends a little before Boulder City but Route 93 keeps running as a double lane highway till the dam on the Arizona-Nevada state border. There is a parking lot (with an accommodating capacity of 459 cars) on the left just near the entrance. The Dam is a few minutes' walk from the parking garage. This journey of 30 miles normally takes 45 minutes drive on an average.
The Hoover Dam is located on a unique point as it is surrounded by many other attractive tourist points and options which you can easily accommodate in your single day's itinerary, like Grand Canyon skywalk,, Grand Canyon Tour, Grand Canyon Helicopter Tours, Grand Canyon South Rim, Hoover Dam Bridge, Skywalk and Lake Mead.
