Waterfalls

Places in this collection

• 
  Entry № 021

  Katmai & Brooks Falls

  Brown bears stand at the lip of a waterfall catching leaping salmon — the most honest queue in nature, with a platform for watching it.

• 
  Entry № 026

  Nahanni

  Náįlįcho, a waterfall twice Niagara's height, and four great canyons in a roadless reserve — among the first UNESCO sites ever listed.

• 
  Entry № 044

  Plitvice Lakes

  Sixteen lakes held back by dams that moss, algae and bacteria are still building, roughly a centimetre or two a year.

• 
  Entry № 076

  Victoria Falls

  Classed as the largest sheet of falling water on Earth, and a waterfall that keeps walking upriver: the zigzag canyon below it is where it used to be.

• 
  Entry № 087

  Milford Sound / Piopiotahi

  So much rain falls here that fresh water floats on the sea like a lid, and deep-sea black coral grows within a diver's reach. The boats pass right over it.

• 
  Entry № 093

  Niagara Falls

  A treaty sets how much water goes over Niagara Falls: twice as much by day in the tourist season as at night. The rest goes through tunnels to power stations, and in 1969 the American Falls was turned off.

• 
  Entry № 106

  Iguazú Falls

  Argentina's park counts 275 falls; other accounts give 150 to 300, because the number depends on the river. The same river wrecked the walkway to the Devil's Throat in 2023, and it was taken apart again in 2026 before an expected flood.

• 
  Entry № 127

  Kuang Si Falls

  A waterfall outside Luang Prabang that spills through a staircase of milky blue pools over pale stone the water laid down itself, with rescued moon bears and sun bears dozing beside the path.

• 
  Entry № 129

  Gocta Falls

  A waterfall of 771 metres in two drops in northern Peru, in full view of the villages below it, which the wider world heard of only in 2006, together with a world ranking disputed ever since.

• 
  Entry № 141

  Yosemite

  For most of a century a waterfall of burning embers was pushed off a Yosemite cliff every summer night. The Park Service stopped it in 1968. Each February the sun now sets a real waterfall alight.

• 
  Entry № 148

  Gullfoss

  A glacial river that turns and drops twice into a canyon. A farmer's daughter fought the plan to dam it and stands above it in stone; the lease itself died when the rent stopped.

• 
  Entry № 194

  Ban Gioc Waterfall

  A wide, tiered waterfall on the Quay Son River in Vietnam’s far north, falling into a green pool below karst hills. China shares it and calls it Detian; visitors from Vietnam see it from the southern bank.

← The whole Field Guide

Notes on sources. This Collection groups existing Field Guide entries; each entry carries its own sources. Written and fact-checked by SockMonkey.com. Last reviewed 29 September 2026.