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The Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya are one of the world's most spectacular waterfalls. The falls are situated on the Zambezi River, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and are roughly 1.7 km (1 mile) wide and 128 m (420 ft) high. They are considered ... more »
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Airports The Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya are one of the world's most spectacular waterfalls. The falls are situated on the Zambezi River, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and are roughly 1.7 km (1 mile) wide and 128 m (420 ft) high. They are considered a remarkable spectacle because of the peculiar narrow slot-like chasm into which the water falls, so one can view the falls face-on.
David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer, visited the falls in 1855 and renamed them after Queen Victoria, though they were known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya, the "smoke that thunders". The falls are part of two national parks, Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia and Victoria Falls National Park in Zimbabwe, and are one of Southern Africa's major tourist attractions. They are also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Vastly larger than North America's Niagara Falls, Victoria is only rivalled by South America's Iguazu Falls (excluding large rapid like falls such as Livingston de Chutes). Whilst Iguazu is divided into over 270 (relatively) 'small' falls and cataracts, Victoria is the largest single sheet of water in the world, over 100 metres tall, and over one mile wide.
Before the railway link to Bulawayo was completed in 1905, the falls were not often visited. They were an increasingly popular attraction during British colonial rule of the area and the tourist town of Victoria Falls grew up on the Zimbabwe side. From the late 1960s onwards visitor numbers dropped, as guerrilla warfare in Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia) and a climate of suspicion of foreigners under the rule of Kenneth Kaunda in the newly independent Zambia deterred tourists.
Zimbabwean independence in 1980 brought comparative peace, and the 1980s saw a renewed surge in tourism, and the development of the region as a centre for extreme sports played a large role in this. By the end of the 1990s, almost 300,000 people were visiting the falls annually, and this was expected to rise to over a million in the next decade.
The numbers of people visiting the Zimbabwe side of the falls has historically been much higher than the number visiting the Zambia side, due to the greater development of the visitor facilities there. However, the number of tourists visiting Zimbabwe began to decline in the early 2000s as civil unrest brewed surrounding the continuing rule of Robert Mugabe. The two countries permit tourists to make day trips from one side to the other without the necessity of obtaining a visa.
The earliest known inhabitants of the area around Victoria Falls were Khoisan hunter-gatherers (bushmen). They were followed by, Tokaleya people, who called the falls Shongwe. Later, the Ndebele named them aManza Thunqayo, and the Makololo Mosi-oa-Tunya, meaning "The smoke that thunders".
The first European to see the falls was David Livingstone on 17 November 1855, during his 1852-1856 journey from the upper Zambezi to the mouth of the river. Livingstone reached the Falls from upriver and rowed across to a small island that now bears the name Livingstone Island. Livingstone had previously been impressed by the Ngonye Falls further upstream, but found the new falls much more impressive, and named them after Queen Victoria. He wrote of the falls "No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight".
In 1860, Livingstone returned to the area and made a detailed study of the falls with John Kirk. Other early European visitors were the Portuguese explorer Serpa Pinto and the British artist Thomas Baines, who executed some of the earliest paintings of the falls. Until the area was opened up by the building of the railway in 1905, though, the falls were seldom visited by other Europeans.
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