List of Tallest Waterfalls in the World

The tallest waterfall in the world, Venezuela's Angel Falls, plunges 979 metres down the vertical face of Auyán-tepui, one of the flat-topped sandstone mountains called tepuis that dominate the Gran Sabana. The fall is so high that in the dry season, much of the water evaporates into mist before it reaches the ground. The waterfall is named after the American aviator Jimmie Angel, who crash-landed his plane on top of Auyán-tepui in 1937 while searching for a rumoured vein of gold. Ranking waterfalls is unusually contentious. Geographers argue over what counts as a single 'drop' versus multiple tiered cascades, how to handle seasonal flows, and how to measure waterfalls that have never been surveyed at ground level. Tugela Falls in South Africa was long listed as the world's second-tallest but a 2016 expedition argued it should be re-measured as possibly taller than Angel. For consistency, this list uses the most widely accepted published heights. Seven of the ten tallest waterfalls are in just three regions: the tepui country of Venezuela and Guyana, the Peruvian cloud forest, and the western fjords of Norway. None of the classical tourist waterfalls — Niagara, Iguazu, Victoria — come close on height. Iguazu is only 82 metres tall; Victoria, 108. Those falls earn their fame from width and water volume, not vertical drop. Many of the world's tallest waterfalls were only discovered by the outside world in the 20th and 21st centuries. Peru's Yumbilla Falls was not widely known until 2007. Oceania and the Amazon still contain waterfalls that are almost certainly taller than some entries on this list, simply waiting to be formally measured.