The Victoria Falls shared by Zambia and Zimbabwe, is today considered to be the largest sheet of falling water on the planet earth.
The history of this great work of God can be traced back to the year 1885, when Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone had already moved round the continent of Africa for years, a continent then unknown to the rest of the world heard the local men as they discussed the immense waterfall heard. Because of this tremendous sound and vapour Livingstone decided to see the falls.
The local people call it Mosi-oa-Tunya, meaning "The smoke that thunders." Desribing his first view David Livingstone wrote "Creeping with awe to the verge, i peered down into a large rent whioch had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambezi, and saw that a stream of a thousand (metres) broad leaped down (thirty metres) and then became suddenly compressed into a space of fifteen to twenty (metres)."
The Victoria Falls is 1,708 metres wide, making it the largest curtain of water in the world. It drops between 90m and 107m into the Zambezi Gorge and an average of 550,000 cubic metres of water plummet over the edge every munite.
The area surrounding the falls is also very beautiful with the variety of trees and plants and facinating animals, beautiful birds and eagles and the rocky trees. The falls and it surrounding area have been declared National Parks and a world Heritage Site. In the words of Livingstone; "no one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything withnessed 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."
Given the name Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria of England by Livingstone about 160 years ago, many people now trooped down annually to experience the magnificence for themselves.
The annual flood is between February to May with a peak in April. The spray from the falls typically rises rises to a height of over 400 metres (1,300ft), and sometimes even twice as high, and visible from up to 50km (30miles) away.
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