Victoria Falls is one of the largest and most spectacular waterfalls on Earth, on the Zambezi River at the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe in southern Africa. Neither the tallest nor the widest waterfall in the world, it is generally considered the greatest by the sheer size of its falling sheet of water, a curtain more than a kilometre and a half wide and over a hundred metres high.

The Indigenous name for the falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders," a perfect description. At full flow the Zambezi pours over the edge in such volume that the spray rises hundreds of metres into the air, visible from far away like a column of smoke, while the roar can be heard long before the falls come into view.

A panorama of Victoria Falls, where the Zambezi pours over a wall more than a kilometre and a half wide. Credit: Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0).
A panorama of Victoria Falls, where the Zambezi pours over a wall more than a kilometre and a half wide. Credit: Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The mist sustains a permanent patch of rainforest on the cliffs opposite the falls, watered by the falls' own spray even in the dry heat of the surrounding region. This lush green strip, alive with ferns and palms, stands in vivid contrast to the dry woodland all around, an ecosystem created entirely by the falling water.

Victoria Falls is unusual in its form. The Zambezi flows across a broad, flat plateau and then drops suddenly into a narrow, zigzagging chasm carved into the basalt rock, so that the full width of the river plunges into a slot barely wider than the river itself.

The falls plunge into a narrow gorge, the river's full width dropping into a chasm in the basalt. Credit: Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The falls plunge into a narrow gorge, the river's full width dropping into a chasm in the basalt. Credit: Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The water then churns through a series of gorges downstream. Over vast stretches of time the falls have cut backward through the rock, carving the zigzag canyon that records, step by step, where the falls once stood. The present falls are only the latest in a long line of earlier waterfalls, each abandoned as the river ate its way upstream.

Victoria Falls transforms with the seasons. During and after the rainy season the Zambezi is in full flood, and the falls become a deafening, mist-shrouded torrent so dense it can obscure the view entirely. In the dry season the flow drops dramatically, exposing the bare rock face.

In the low-water months, the reduced flow even allows, in places, the daring to bathe in pools at the very lip of the precipice. The two faces of the falls, the raging flood and the gentle trickle, are so different that many visitors are surprised to learn they are the same place, and the falls reward visits in different seasons.

The falls are protected within national parks on both the Zambian and Zimbabwean sides and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, drawing visitors and adventure tourists from around the world. They have become a centrepiece of the region's economy and identity, a shared natural treasure that, like the river that makes it, belongs to two nations at once.