The smoke that thunders — the world's largest waterfall curtain, where 550 million litres of Zambezi water plunge 108m every minute and the mist rises 400m, visible from 50km away
Victoria Falls is a town of 35,000 on Zimbabwe's northern border, adjacent to one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The Zambezi River plunges 108m into a 1.7km-wide basalt gorge, creating the world's largest single sheet of falling water — 550 million litres per minute at peak flow. The Zimbabwe side provides the most complete frontal view of the full curtain, while Knife Edge Bridge on the Zambia side delivers the most dramatic close encounter with the spray. Bungee jumping from Victoria Falls Bridge (111m), Grade V white-water rafting the Batoka Gorge, and Zambezi sunset cruises co…
Local Kololo people knew the falls as Mosi-oa-Tunya ('The Smoke That Thunders') long before David Livingstone became the first European to document them on 16 November 1855, naming them after Queen Victoria. Livingstone wrote: 'No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England — scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.' The Victoria Falls Bridge (completed 1905, 128m span) was built by Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company to carry the Cape-to-Cairo Railway. The Zimbabwe town grew as a safari gateway and, despite economic turbulenc…