Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls ranks among the world's most spectacular waterfalls, where the Zambezi River, more than 2 km wide at this point, plunges noisily down a series of basalt gorges in a permanent cloud of mist. The falls mark a major break between the broad, low-gradient channel upstream and the steep, narrowly incised gorges downstream.

The Kololo tribe living in the area described the falls as Mosi-oa-Tunya — the Smoke that Thunders — for the immense spray and incredible noise caused by the rushing water. The falls transform the Zambezi from a placid river into a ferocious torrent cutting through a series of dramatic gorges, with a mist-soaked rain forest on the opposite wall and paths along the forest edge for viewing the falls.

The falls lie on the Zambia–Zimbabwe border, with their centre at 17°55′28″S 25°51′19″E, at an altitude of about 915 m above mean sea level.

At peak flow the falls span 1,708 m and discharge up to 500 million litres per minute, generating spray that rises 500 m and is visible 20 km away ^{4Zambezi – Victoria Falls National Parks Management Plan 2024–2034 · Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority ↗}.

Britannica describes Victoria Falls as approximately twice as wide and twice as deep as Niagara Falls, spanning the entire breadth of the Zambezi at one of its widest points, with a maximum drop of 355 feet and a mean flow near 33,000 cubic feet (935 cubic metres) per second ^{5Victoria Falls (waterfall, Zambia-Zimbabwe) · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗}, while the long-term mean annual flow is 1,100 cubic metres per second ^{6River Flows · Zambezi River Authority ↗}.

The lowest flows recorded at the falls came in the 1995/96 season, with an annual mean of 390 cubic metres per second, while the maximum flow recorded was 10,000 cubic metres per second in March 1958, during the early construction phase of Kariba Dam ^{6River Flows · Zambezi River Authority ↗}.

The falls mark the modern position of a west-migrating knickpoint that incised the lower gorges into Jurassic layered basalts, a development that followed the diversion of drainage off the Kalahari plateau into the mid-Zambezi, which occupies a deep graben. The positions of the falls are controlled by linear fault lines in the underlying basalt rocks.

Since the uplifting of the Makgadikgadi Pan some two million years ago the Zambezi has been cutting through the basalt plateau along east-west fissures, forming a series of retreating falls, and below the present falls the river enters a zigzag series of narrow gorges that are relicts of seven past waterfalls.

Intense river erosion has moved the falls upstream, elongating the zigzag gorge; prior positions of the strongly linear falls can be detected in the gorge, and the falls will continue to erode northward.

The waters drop into a chasm 25 to 75 metres wide whose only outlet is a narrow channel less than 65 metres wide and 120 metres long, through which the entire Zambezi flows.

Below the falls the river emerges into an enormous zigzag trough forming the beginning of Batoka Gorge, cut 120 to 240 metres deep through a basalt plateau for a distance of 100 km.

Criterion (viii) recognises the falls and their eight steep-sided gorges — an outstanding example of river capture in a tectonic basin — as the result of changing waterfall positions over geological time, with erosion still sculpting the hard basalt.

The Zambezi, southern Africa's longest trans-boundary river, rises at 1,585 metres above sea level in north-western Zambia and flows some 2,700 kilometres through plains, gorges, rapids and cataracts to the Indian Ocean.

Victoria Falls is one of the hydrometric stations used in the day-to-day operations of the Kariba reservoir, and one of the eight where flow measurements are carried out.

The falls and their adjoining parklands were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1989 under natural criteria (vii) and (viii), as a transboundary serial property straddling the Zambezi along the Zambia–Zimbabwe border.

Victoria Falls National Park runs from 6 km above the falls to Batoka Gorge 12 km below them, while the riverine strip of Zambezi National Park extends 9 km upstream along the right bank. Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, one of Zambia's smallest, lies bordered by Livingstone town and the Zambezi and extends from the Batoka Gorge for about 12 km along the river above the falls.

In Zambia the property is protected under the National Heritage Conservation Act of 1998 and the Zambia Wildlife Act, and in Zimbabwe under the Parks and Wildlife Act of 2008 (revised). A Joint Integrated Management Plan prepared in a participatory manner was approved by Zambia and Zimbabwe in November 2007 and is implemented through Joint Ministerial, Joint Technical and Joint Site Management committees. The parks also fall within three international conservation designations — the KAZA transfrontier conservation area, the Batoka Gorge Important Bird Area and a Ramsar site.

The Joint Integrated Management Plan 2025–2030 for the property was jointly validated and submitted on 30 June 2025, providing a unified framework covering tourism pressure, infrastructure development, biodiversity conservation and climate resilience. A boundary modification request has been formally submitted under UNESCO guidelines to define the property and its buffer zone more precisely.

The transboundary property covers 6,860 ha in total: 3,779 ha of Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia, 2,340 ha of Victoria Falls National Park in Zimbabwe, and 741 ha of the riverine strip of Zambezi National Park in Zimbabwe.

The riverine rainforest within the falls' splash zone is a fragile ecosystem dependent on abundant water and high humidity from the spray plume, which is visible from 50 km away on the Bulawayo road. This mist-forest is a discontinuous rainforest on sandy alluvium, with tree species including pod mahogany, ebony, strangler fig, ivory palm and wild date palm, alongside 70 shrub and 150 herbaceous species recorded for this rare habitat.

Some 35 raptors are found in the Batoka gorge below the falls, where about ten pairs of the Taita falcon breed alongside black eagles, peregrine falcons and augur buzzards. Bird surveys on the property are conducted twice a year, in January and July, and an annual vulture survey in Zambezi National Park monitors nesting site distribution and success with stakeholders such as the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust.

• three million years ago
  Earliest stone artefacts
  Stone artefacts of Homo habilis have been found near the falls.^{8Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls — World Heritage Datasheet · UNEP-WCMC / IUCN ↗}
• around 50,000 years ago
  Middle Stone Age occupation
  Middle Stone Age tools indicate occupation of the area.^{8Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls — World Heritage Datasheet · UNEP-WCMC / IUCN ↗}
• between 10,000 and 2,000 years ago
  Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers
  Late Stone Age hunter-gatherer material dates from this span.^{8Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls — World Heritage Datasheet · UNEP-WCMC / IUCN ↗}
• at least seven centuries
  Tonga presence
  The area has been home to the Tonga people for at least seven centuries.^{8Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls — World Heritage Datasheet · UNEP-WCMC / IUCN ↗}
• 16 November 1855
  First European visitor
  David Livingstone was the first European to see the falls, naming them for Queen Victoria.^{5Victoria Falls (waterfall, Zambia-Zimbabwe) · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗}

The towns of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Maramba, formerly Livingstone, in Zambia have about 40,000 and 100,000 inhabitants respectively.

David Livingstone first heard of the great waterfall in 1851 and set out to visit it in 1855, spending the night on Kalai Island before landing on the island at the lip of the falls that now bears his name ^{3The Victoria Falls · Zambia Tourism Agency ↗}. He was the first European to see the falls, on 16 November 1855, and named them for Queen Victoria ^{5Victoria Falls (waterfall, Zambia-Zimbabwe) · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗}. On 17 November 1855 he reached the waterfall that Africans called Mosi-oa-Tunya and named it Victoria Falls; mist rising from the falls could be seen from five or six miles away ^{13Livingstone Sees the Victoria Falls (Research Starter) · EBSCO Information Services (Mark C. Herman) ↗}.

Livingstone had heard about the falls before seeing them: Sebetwane, leader of the Makololo, met him in 1851 and asked whether his country had smoke that sounds ^{14The Smoke That Thunders · David Livingstone Birthplace Museum ↗}. He first sighted the columns of vapour he called smoke rising at a distance of five or six miles, five columns that bent with the wind and seemed to mingle with the clouds ^{15Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (David Livingstone, 1857) · Project Gutenberg ↗}. On revisiting the falls on 9 August 1860 during his Zambezi expedition, he made an accurate measurement by lowering a rope weighted with bullets over the precipice ^{13Livingstone Sees the Victoria Falls (Research Starter) · EBSCO Information Services (Mark C. Herman) ↗}.

The Victoria Falls Bridge was completed in 1905, a steel parabolic arch with a span of 198 m and a deck standing 128 m above the river. At the time of its opening it was the highest bridge in the world. It connects Zimbabwe and Zambia, the Zambezi river forming the border between the two countries.

Cecil Rhodes instructed that the bridge be built across the Zambezi where the trains, as they pass, would catch the spray from the falls. Its components came from Britain, were shipped to Mozambique and carried to the site by rail. Workers fired a rocket with a thin cable across the gorge, the final cable weighing five tonnes.

The Rain Forest, a 30 ha area opposite the falls, was fenced in 1986 and has become the parks authority's prime revenue generator, drawing around 400,000 visitors in 2019 who generated over 9.5 million US dollars through entry fees. The forest and surrounding grassland have approximately 3.5 km of concrete paths with 16 official viewpoints. Previous studies capped sustainable annual visitor numbers at 100,000 to 150,000, but 1,700 visitors per day were recorded over Christmas 2013 — far above the cap.

Different seasons give different experiences: the peak flood is around March and April when spray can hide the full width, while by November and December parts of the falls dry up and the basalt cliffs and abyss can be fully appreciated.

The area offers bungee jumping, white water rafting, abseiling and river boat cruises, and its rainforest receives constant spray, creating a unique ecosystem that is a botanist's dream and bird lovers' paradise. The park covers about 23.4 square kilometres and has a dense rainforest watered by spray from the falls; the area is mainly populated by baboons, warthogs and monkeys, with vegetation including ferns, palms, liana vines and mahogany. The park incorporates the Eastern Cataract of Victoria Falls, a section of lush rainforest sustained by the waterfall's life-giving spray where smaller antelope and warthog live.

Zambia and Zimbabwe, with the Zambezi River Authority, committed to a geomorphological and geological baseline survey of the gorge environment, with follow-up surveys every two years to detect any changes possibly attributable to the proposed Batoka Gorge dam. ^{11Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls World Heritage Property — State of Conservation Report, December 2025 · Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority / National Heritage Conservation Commission (Zambia) ↗} The state parties also report ongoing impact assessments with alternative scenarios designed to avoid adverse impacts of the Batoka Gorge Hydro Electric Scheme on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property. ^{11Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls World Heritage Property — State of Conservation Report, December 2025 · Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority / National Heritage Conservation Commission (Zambia) ↗}