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Kaieteur Falls
The world's most powerful single-drop waterfall, deep in the rainforest of Guyana
Deep in the rainforest of central Guyana, the Potaro River plunges 226 metres over a sandstone cliff in a single uninterrupted leap, making Kaieteur the most powerful single-drop waterfall in the world by combined height and volume. Far taller than Niagara and carrying a tremendous flow, it falls in glorious isolation, with no roads, no crowds, and no railings, surrounded by an untouched expanse of jungle. Counting the cascades below the main drop, the total height reaches about 251 metres.
The falls pour off the edge of a tepui-like sandstone plateau in the Guiana Highlands, the same ancient geology that produces Angel Falls to the west. The surrounding Kaieteur National Park protects a pristine slice of rainforest and a remarkable miniature ecosystem: the giant tank bromeliads that grow here shelter the tiny golden rocket frog, which lives its whole life within a single plant, while swifts known as Kaieteur swifts nest behind the curtain of falling water and roost in the gorge.
The falls take their name from a Patamona legend in which a chief named Kai paddled over the edge in a sacrifice to save his people. The Scottish geologist Charles Barrington Brown documented them for the wider world in 1870. Their sheer remoteness has been their protection: reaching Kaieteur usually means a small-plane flight over unbroken forest, and visitors who make the trip often have one of the planet's great waterfalls almost entirely to themselves.