60 Fun Facts About Victoria Falls

The falls were named in 1855 in honour of which British monarch?

The Lozi name Mosi-oa-Tunya continues in common use alongside it.

Which two countries share Victoria Falls?

Both have national parks and tourism infrastructure at the site.

What does the Lozi name Mosi-oa-Tunya mean?

Both names are recognised on the World Heritage List, and the older names Seongo and Chongwe mean the place of the rainbow.

Which Scottish missionary was the first European recorded to see the falls, on 16 November 1855?

He named them after his queen.

How wide is Victoria Falls?

Its combined width and 108-metre height make it the world's largest sheet of falling water.

How high is the falls at its maximum, in the centre of the First Gorge?

The chasm is only 80 metres deep at its western end.

How wide is the only outlet from the First Gorge, through which the whole Zambezi pours?

The gap lies about two-thirds of the way across the falls from the western end.

What is the deep swirling pool in the Second Gorge called?

It is reached by a steep footpath from the Zambian side and is about 150 metres across.

Which of the main streams of the curtain is the highest?

The streams run from the Devil's Cataract on the Zimbabwe side to the Eastern Cataract on the Zambian side.

Roughly how high does the spray from the falls typically rise?

It can be seen from up to 50 kilometres away, and sometimes rises twice as high.

In which month does the Zambezi's flood peak at the falls?

The flood season runs from February to May, and in flood the foot of the falls cannot be seen for spray.

During which months may up to half of the rock face of the falls run dry?

The minimum flow in November is about a tenth of the flood peak.

What rare phenomenon can be seen in the spray at full moon?

Victoria Falls is one of the world's best-known sites for spray moonbows.

What did unusually low rain do to the falls in 2019?

Climate change and altered rainfall patterns have been suggested as causes.

How many principal gorges lie downstream of the falls?

The deepest, Songwe Gorge, plunges 140 metres.

What rock does the Zambezi cut through at Victoria Falls?

The plateau formed in the Jurassic, around 200 million years ago.

Before it drained east through the Batoka Gorge, the Upper Zambezi originally flowed south to join which river?

Uplift about 2 million years ago blocked that route and created the paleolake Makgadikgadi.

Which two islands sit on the crest of the falls?

Boaruka is also known as Cataract Island; Livingstone Island lies near the middle.

Which French cartographer's 1715 map clearly marks the falls in the correct position, 140 years before Livingstone?

A Bellin map of about 1750 also marks them as cataractes.

Which Czech explorer made the first detailed plan of the falls in 1875?

It was published in 1880; Portuguese explorer Serpa Pinto also visited early.

Which British artist, who travelled with Livingstone in 1858, painted some of the earliest pictures of the falls?

He was one of the first white men to see them.

Whose vision of a Cape-to-Cairo railway drove the building of the first bridge across the Zambezi at the falls?

He never visited the falls and died before construction began.

Rhodes insisted the bridge be built at what kind of spot?

So the site over the Second Gorge was chosen.

The Victoria Falls Bridge was prefabricated in which English town?

The Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company shipped it to Beira in Mozambique, then by rail to the falls.

Who officially opened the bridge on 12 September 1905?

He was president of the British Association at the time; the bridge took just 14 months to build.

Which engineer, later principal designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, did the stress calculations for the Victoria Falls Bridge?

George Andrew Hobson of Sir Douglas Fox and Partners designed it, with a parabolic main arch.

How high above the river's low-water mark does the bridge stand?

It is 198 metres long and carries road, railway and footway.

How high is the bungee jump from the Victoria Falls Bridge?

In 2011 the cord snapped and an Australian woman fell 24 metres into the river; she survived.

What was the nickname of the temporary cableway used to carry bridge materials, and even a locomotive in pieces, across the gorge?

Rhodes had insisted the Livingstone to Kalomo line be laid before the bridge was finished.

In which year did the Victoria Falls Hotel open to serve visitors arriving on the new railway?

Its terrace looks out over the Second Gorge and the bridge.

The Zambian town nearest the falls is named after Livingstone. What role did it hold from 1911 to 1935?

The capital moved to Lusaka in 1935 to be nearer the Copperbelt.

How large is Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, the Zambian park at the falls?

The Zimbabwean side's Victoria Falls National Park is even smaller at 23 square kilometres.

Which large national park lies to the south of the falls in Zimbabwe, reachable by wandering animals?

Chobe National Park across the border is a popular day trip in the other direction.

What is the natural infinity swimming spot on the lip of the falls, on the Zambian side, called?

A rock barrier forms a safe eddy there, usually between September and December.

Which species of rhinoceros inhabits the Zambian national park at the falls?

Black rhinos roam the Victoria Falls Private Game Reserve on the other side.

How many fish species live above the falls, compared with 39 below?

The disparity shows how effectively the falls divide the upper and lower Zambezi.

The gorges below the falls are known for how many species of raptor?

Taita falcons, Verreaux's eagles, peregrines and augur buzzards breed there.

What kind of forest is nurtured by the spray of the falls?

It shelters plants rare for the area such as pod mahogany, ebony and ivory palm.

Where was Livingstone paddled to when he first saw the falls?

Local people had told him about the falls before he reached them.

With whom did Livingstone return in 1860 to make a detailed study of the falls?

Kirk was the botanist and doctor on Livingstone's Zambezi expedition.

Some writers believe which Portuguese priest may have glimpsed the falls in the sixteenth century?

Europeans were long sceptical of reports because the flat plateau made a great waterfall seem unlikely.

The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa. Into which body of water does it empty?

It is the longest east-flowing river in Africa and rises in Zambia.

How long is the Zambezi?

It crosses Mozambique to reach the sea after forming several national borders.

Which dam downstream of the falls, built 1955-59, created a lake 280 kilometres long?

The double-curvature concrete arch was built by Cogefar-Impresit of Italy for $135 million.

What capacity was planned in the 2010s for the Batoka Gorge hydroelectric station?

The scheme, first fixed at 2,400 MW in the 2010s feasibility work, would sit on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Kazungula Bridge, upstream of the falls, links Zambia with which country?

It carries road and a not-yet-connected railway line.

Roughly how many people were visiting the falls each year by the end of the 1990s?

More visitors are Zambian and Zimbabwean than international, since the falls are reachable by bus and train.

Why did Zambia restrict border crossings at the falls in 1966?

The border did not fully reopen until 1980.

How were travellers ferried across the Zambezi above the falls before the bridge opened in 1905?

European settlement of the area had begun around 1900.

What kind of Early Stone Age artefacts have been excavated around the falls?

Middle Stone Age Sangoan and Lupemban artefacts have also been found.

What special unit was created at the falls in 2004 to look after visitors?

They wear yellow reflective bibs around the main tourist areas.

What does the Tonga name for the falls, Shungu Namutitima, mean?

The Lozi name Mosi-oa-Tunya and the Matabele aManz' aThunqayo both mean roughly 'the smoke that thunders'.

Which paleolake formed when uplift blocked the Upper Zambezi's old southward route 2 million years ago?

About 20,000 years ago it overflowed eastward and began cutting the Batoka Gorge through the basalt.

How many past positions of the falls can be read in the form of the Batoka Gorge?

The gorge's six individual gorges follow east-west faults, some with 50 metres of vertical displacement.

Whose firm's hunger for mineral rights north of the Zambezi drove settlement at the falls around 1900?

Cecil Rhodes's firm also exploited timber, ivory and animal skins, and his Cape-to-Cairo dream produced the 1905 bridge.

How large is Victoria Falls National Park, the Zimbabwean park at the falls?

The much larger Zambezi National Park stretches 40 km west along the river beside it.

Which woodland type predominates around the falls outside the spray-fed rainforest and riverbanks?

Smaller patches of miombo and Rhodesian teak woodland also occur, while the rainforest holds pod mahogany and ivory palm.

Which species of rhinoceros roams the Victoria Falls Private Game Reserve?

Southern white rhinos live across the border in Zambia's Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park.

In 2006, roughly what was hotel occupancy on the Zimbabwean side while Zambia's hotels were nearly full?

Political tension under Robert Mugabe had driven tourists across the river, where top hotels charged up to US$630 a night.

Unlike Africa's game parks, what is notable about who visits Victoria Falls?

Being reachable by bus and train makes the falls comparatively cheap for locals to visit.