Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya [Tokaleya Tonga: The Smoke that
Thunders] is a waterfall in southern Africa on the Zambezi River at the
border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. David Livingstone, the Scottish
missionary and explorer, is believed to have been the first European to
view Victoria Falls on 16 November 1855 from what is now known as
Livingstone Island, one of two land masses in the middle of the river,
immediately upstream from the falls on the Zambian side. Livingstone
named his discovery in honour of Queen Victoria, but the indigenous
name, Mosi-oa-Tunya—"the smoke that thunders"—continues in common usage
as well. The nearby national park in Zambia, for example, is named
Mosi-oa-Tunya, whereas the national park and town on the Zimbabwean
shore are both named Victoria Falls. The World Heritage List officially
recognizes both names.
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| Victoria Falls Aerial View Photo — Link |
While it is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall in the world,
it is classified as the largest, based on its width of 1,708 metres
(5,604 ft) and height of 108 metres (354 ft), resulting in the world's
largest sheet of falling water. Victoria Falls is roughly twice the
height of North America's Niagara Falls
and well over twice the width of its Horseshoe Falls. In height and
width Victoria Falls is rivalled only by Argentina and Brazil's Iguazu Falls.
Photo — Link
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Over at least 100,000 years, the falls have been receding
upstream through the Batoka Gorges, eroding the sandstone-filled cracks
to form the gorges. The river's course in the current vicinity of the
falls is north to south, so it opens up the large east-west cracks
across its full width, then it cuts back through a short north-south
crack to the next east-west one. The river has fallen in different eras
into different chasms which now form a series of sharply zig-zagging
gorges downstream from the falls. Wiki
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