Gariep Dam, Concrete dam and hydroelectric station in Norvalspont, South Africa

The Gariep Dam is a concrete gravity-arch hybrid on the Orange River, 88 m high with a 914 m crest, built from about 1.73 million m³ of concrete. The gorge was too wide for a full arch, so flanking gravity abutments carry the central arch. A stepped spillway of five diagonal chutes descends on the left, and an arc of rectangular piers runs across the face. Four 90 MW turbines sit in the power station.

Commissioned in 1971 as the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam, it was built by the French company Dumez in a gorge at the entrance to the Ruigte Valley. It was renamed Gariep Dam on 4 October 1996 after apartheid, taking the Khoekhoe word for "river". Its reservoir feeds the Orange-Fish River Tunnel, which diverts water to the Great Fish River and the Eastern Cape.

The name Gariep comes from the Khoekhoe language and means river. The structure received this name in 1996 as part of broader changes in the country.

The dam wall lies about 5 km east of Norvalspont, roughly 48 km north-east of Colesberg, with the crest at some 1,300 m above sea level. The wall is 914 m long and 88 m high, so allow time to take in the full span. The reservoir's south bank at Oviston holds the Orange-Fish River Tunnel inlet.

The dam's four 90-MW turbines are remotely controlled from Gauteng, so the power station at the wall runs without operators on site. Water used by the generators flows on down the Orange River to the Vanderkloof Dam. The workers who built the wall lived in a settlement just below it, called Oranjekrag, now the town of Gariepdam.