Zimbabwe / Zambia Horseshoe falls UNESCO World Heritage

Victoria Falls

A 108 m drop on the Zambezi River.

When to go

Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0

In numbers.

108m

Height

1,088m³/s

Average flow

Jan–Apr

Best months

1.2GW

Water power

estimate

The water at Victoria Falls, month by month

It roars from February to March.

The fullest months: from February to March. The thinnest: from June to November.

2,143 m³/sJan
2,807 m³/sFeb
2,900 m³/sMar
2,158 m³/sApr
1,334 m³/sMay
662 m³/sJun
285 m³/sJul
210 m³/sAug
209 m³/sSep
217 m³/sOct
453 m³/sNov
1,291 m³/sDec

high water best months to go

From about 209 m³/s in the lowest month to 2,900 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from January to April.

Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.

Waterfall on the Zambezi River in Zambia and Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls is a horseshoe falls on the Zambezi River, in Zimbabwe. The water falls 108 m over a front 1,707 m wide. It lies within Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. It is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Getting there.

Victoria Fallsnearest town · 3.0 km in a straight line
Parking 770 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International Airport (LVI)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 12 km in a straight lineCar hire at VFA airport (Victoria Falls)Discover Cars · Affiliate link
From January to Aprilbest months to go (estimate)

Plan your visit

Stay, explore and get there

Car hire at VFA airport (Victoria Falls)Discover CarsSee

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

How big is it?

How big it really is.

Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.

1.2 GW

About 1,088 m³/s falling 108 m: the power of the water as it drops.

as much as 384 large wind turbines
enough to power about 288,200 homes, if it were all turned into electricity

Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.

Seen from the sky.

8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.

The river through the falls

The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.

The valley below the falls

Around the falls the river drops 40 m in 1.9 km. Here the river runs about 51 m below the lower rim of its valley.

What is around.

44viewpointsDanger Point, Knife Edge Bridge, Boiling Pot and 41 more
—waymarked walking routes
19car parks
—swimming spots
1picnic sites
8toilets
—information boards and visitor centres
2bus stops within 1 km
5other named waterfalls within 4 kmEastern Cataract, Arm Chair Falls, Main Falls and 2 more
—caves
11campsitesCampsite - The Bushfront Lodge, Jolly Boys Camp, The Victoria Falls Waterfront "Adventure Village" and 8 more
78hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmKingdom Hotel, Ilala Lodge, Elephant Hills Intercontinental and 75 more
29restaurants and cafés within 3 km

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

Towns nearby

Victoria Falls3.0 km in a straight line
Livingstone9.2 km in a straight line

Weather

The weather, month by month.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Afternoon °C	31	30	31	30	29	26	26	30	34	37	35	32
Night °C	20	20	19	17	13	10	10	12	17	21	22	21
Rain & snow (mm)	139	126	92	33	2	6	0	0	2	12	63	136
Wet days	22	19	15	5	1	0	0	0	0	3	13	20
Sun h/day	7.4	7.6	8.0	9.2	10.1	9.8	9.9	10.4	10.2	9.7	7.7	7.2

Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (892 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.

Photos

Through visitors' eyes.

Cataratas Victoria, Zambia-Zimbabue, 2018-07-27, DD 27 — Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0

The Black River south of the Victoria Falls — Óðinn · CC BY-SA 2.5 ca

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe 01 — Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 4.0

Recent years

Wet years and dry years

Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2020	67%	185%	122%	61%	—	25%	—	—	—	35%	164%	188%
2021	141%	143%	63%	39%	—	5%	—	—	—	245%	76%	115%
2022	225%	19%	275%	142%	—	10%	—	—	—	7%	234%	112%
2023	119%	96%	29%	14%	—	0%	—	—	—	25%	43%	135%
2024	73%	33%	90%	201%	—	0%	—	—	—	27%	50%	116%
2025	130%	123%	80%	205%	—	20%	—	—	—	102%	157%	185%

130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual

About these numbers

Names, height, width, river	Wikidata (Q43278) · CC0
River flow and catchment	HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0
Climate	NASA POWER, 1991–2020
Relief, river profile, 3D model	Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
Paths, viewpoints, parking	© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
Images	EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.