Natural Wonders (2012APR23)

n a t u r a l     

                               wonders 

The Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya)

The Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya is claimed to be the largest waterfall in the world. 

It is located in the Southern Africa on the Zambezi River between the countries of 

Zambia and Zimbabwe. This is one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world 
and is farming the largest sheet of falling water with a width of 1,708 metres and a 
height of 108 metres. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Mosi-oa-Tunya is the original name, literally meaning "the Smoke that Thunders". 

The name of Victoria Falls was given by David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer 

and missionary and the first European to view the Falls in honor of his Queen. 

The only land accessible in the middle of the falls now is known as "Livingstone 

Island" in Zambia. David saw the Falls in 1855. He wrote, "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."

Archaeological sites around the falls have yielded Homo habilis stone artifacts 

from 3 million years ago, 50,000-year-old Middle Stone Age tools and Late 

Stone Age (10,000 and 2,000 years ago) weapons, adornments and digging 

tools. Iron-using Khoisan hunter-gatherers displaced these Stone Age people 

and in turn were displaced by Bantu tribes such as the southern Tonga people 

known as the Batoka/Tokalea, who called the falls "Shungu na mutitima". The 

Matabele, later arrivals, named them "aManz' aThunqayo", and the Batswana 

and Makololo ( whose language is used by the Lozi people ) call them 

"Mosi-o-Tunya". All these names mean essentially "the smoke that thunders".

Victoria Falls' Second Gorge (with bridge) and Third Gorge (right). The peninsular cliffs are in Zambia, the outer cliffs in Zimbabwe

There are 6 gorges in the area, First Gorge, Second Gorge, Third Gorge, Fourth 

Gorge, Fifth Gorge, and Songwe Gorge. There are two relatively small national 

parks in the falls area. However, on the southern bank, there is the Zambezi 

National Park which is extending 40km west along the Zambezi River.

Before 1905, the river was crossed above the falls at the Old Drift, by dugout 

canoe or a barge towed across with a steel cable. Rhodes' vision of a Cape-Cairo 

railway drove plans for the first bridge across the Zambezi and he insisted it be 

built where the spray from the falls would fall on passing trains, so the site at 

the Second Gorge was chosen. From 1905 the railway offered accessible travel 

from as far as the Cape in the south and from 1909, as far as the Belgian Congo 

in the north. In 1904 the Victoria Falls Hotel was opened to accommodate visitors 

arriving on the new railway. The falls became an increasingly popular attraction 

during British colonial rule of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia 

(Zimbabwe), with the town of Victoria Falls becoming the main tourist centre.

The naturally formed "Devil's Pool", where some tourists swim

Nowadays, the Falls attract more than 300,000 tourists visiting annually. Unlike 

the game parks, it has more Zimbabwean and Zambian visitors than international 

tourists as they are accessible inexpensively to reach by bus and train.