Victoria Falls are, quite simply, one of the most magnificent natural spectacles on the planet. On the Zambezi River, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, the water plunges through a fracture in the rock in a continuous curtain 1,708 metres wide, the largest in the world. Local peoples have always called it Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders', for the column of spray that rises hundreds of metres and the roar that can be heard kilometres away. It is a World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
From the Zambian side —the Livingstone side— the experience is especially close and intimate. The paths of Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park lead right to the edge of the chasm, and the Knife-Edge Bridge, a footbridge suspended over the gorge, puts visitors literally inside the cloud of water in flood season. You can go down to the Boiling Pot, the whirlpool at the foot of the railway bridge, and at low water walk across rock beds and peer into Devil's Pool.
This guide explains how to visit the falls from the Zambian side: when to go depending on the flow, which viewpoints not to miss, how much admission costs, and how to combine them with a scenic flight, a Zambezi cruise or the legendary Devil's Pool. Whether wrapped in their cloud of spray or showing their bare rock wall, Victoria Falls are Zambia's natural heart and a sight you will never forget.
Victoria Falls were formed by the Zambezi River eroding a fractured basalt plateau, carving a series of zigzag gorges over hundreds of thousands of years. Known to local peoples as Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders', they were first seen by a European, the explorer David Livingstone, on 16 November 1855, who named them after Queen Victoria. In 1989 UNESCO declared them a World Heritage Site, a title shared by Zambia and Zimbabwe. The full geological and human history is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The birthplace of tourism in Zambia: by the Zambezi roars Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders', which David Livingstone renamed Victoria Falls in 1855 and which gave its name to a whole town.
Read the history of Livingstone and Victoria Falls →They depart from Livingstone, 9 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The story of Victoria Falls begins long before the human one, deep in the geology of southern Africa. Some 180 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions covered the region with thick layers of lava that cooled to form a vast basalt plateau. As it solidified, the rock cracked along fracture lines, mainly running east to west, which over time filled with softer material.
When the Zambezi River began to flow across this plateau, the water found those filled cracks and wore them away much faster than the hard basalt around them. That is how the gorges formed, one after another: the river drops through a fracture, cuts backwards and, over the millennia, opens a new crack and jumps to another fracture line. The result is the spectacular zigzag series of gorges you can see today downstream of the falls, each one a former site of the waterfall.
The current falls (the eighth in the site's geological history) drop through a single fissure 1,708 metres wide into a gorge just 60-120 metres across, which makes them unique: instead of tumbling over an open front, the water crashes against a facing wall and escapes through a narrow outlet, creating the huge column of spray. The process is still going on: erosion continues and, thousands of years from now, the river will open a new gorge and the falls will retreat once again.
For thousands of years, the falls were part of the world of the peoples living in the Zambezi valley. Tonga-, Toka-Leya-, Lozi- and Kololo-speaking groups, among others, knew the place and called it by various names. The name that would catch on is 'Mosi-oa-Tunya', 'the smoke that thunders', after the column of water vapour visible from far away (like the smoke of a great fire) and the constant roar of the falls, which can be heard kilometres away.
For many of these communities the site had a strong spiritual character: it was considered the home of spirits or deities, and ceremonies and offerings took place nearby. Some peoples avoided getting too close to the edge out of respect or sacred fear. The Leya people, who still live in Mukuni village next to the falls, keep traditions tied to the place and to their ancestral chieftaincy.
Humans have been in the area for a very long time: stone tools found in nearby sediments and terraces range from the Early Stone Age to recent times, evidence of hundreds of thousands of years of occupation. When Europeans arrived in the mid-19th century, the falls were neither unknown nor untouched. They were a place with a name, a history and a meaning for the people who lived around them.
On 16 November 1855, the Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone, guided by local paddlers, travelled down the Zambezi by canoe and landed on a small island right on the edge of the drop, now called Livingstone Island. From there he looked out over the abyss and was amazed. In his journal he wrote that the scene was so lovely it 'must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight', a phrase that much later gave its name to the 'Flight of Angels' scenic flight.
Livingstone thus became the first European on record to see the falls, and he named them 'Victoria Falls' in honour of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. It is one of the few names he gave to an African landmark; he generally preferred to keep local names, and in fact he recorded the name Mosi-oa-Tunya. His account, published in Europe, caused a sensation and turned the falls into a legend of the Victorian imagination.
Livingstone was neither a conqueror nor a treasure hunter: he was a committed missionary and a firm opponent of slavery who travelled across central Africa denouncing the slave trade. Even so, his journeys also opened the interior of the continent to European colonial expansion. He died in 1873 in what is now Zambia; his loyal African companions, Chuma and Susi, carried his body for months to the coast so it could be sent to England, where he was buried with honours in Westminster Abbey.
After Livingstone's 'discovery', the falls ended up at the heart of British colonial expansion in southern Africa, driven by Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company. The most ambitious project was a railway linking Cairo with Cape Town, and the falls lay on its route. In 1905 the impressive Victoria Falls Bridge opened: a steel bridge more than 150 metres long hanging 111 metres above the Zambezi, designed (so the story goes) so that train passengers would feel the spray from the falls.
The railway brought the first tourists: aristocrats, hunters and travellers from across the empire began visiting the falls, which soon became a world-famous attraction. On the Zambian side the town of Livingstone was founded and grew, while on the southern side (today's Zimbabwe) the tourist town of Victoria Falls took shape. For most of the 20th century, tourism was concentrated mainly on the more developed southern side.
The region's political history was turbulent: Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia in 1964, and Southern Rhodesia went through a long war before becoming Zimbabwe in 1980. The falls, split by an international border, came to be managed by two countries. Despite the tensions, both understood that their greatest shared treasure was that 'smoke that thunders' drawing travellers from all over the planet.
In 1989, UNESCO declared Victoria Falls / Mosi-oa-Tunya a World Heritage Site, a recognition shared by Zambia and Zimbabwe that confirmed its outstanding universal natural value. On the Zambian side, the falls are protected within Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, which besides the waterfall includes a wildlife area where white rhinos have been reintroduced. The falls also regularly appear on lists of the 'Seven Natural Wonders of the World'.
From 2000 onwards, Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis shifted much of the tourism to the Zambian side, and Livingstone enjoyed a revival as an adventure capital, with luxury lodges, rafting, scenic flights and the exclusive Devil's Pool. Today tourism is a key source of income and jobs for the whole Zambezi region, and the two countries cooperate more and more, for example through the KAZA UniVisa, which makes it easier to travel between Zambia, Zimbabwe and their neighbours.
The falls do, however, face present-day challenges. Climate change and recurring droughts have led to years of very low flow, leaving stretches on the Zambian side almost dry in the dry season and sparking debate about the future of the resource. Tourist pressure, the quality of the Zambezi's water and the balance between development and conservation are all open questions. Even so, every flood season, when the 'smoke that thunders' rises once more above the gorge, Victoria Falls is a reminder of why it is one of the great natural spectacles on Earth.
