The honest answer is that nobody knows. No government or scientific body counts waterfalls worldwide, and even within a single country the number depends on decisions that are surprisingly hard to make. Is a two-metre step in a stream a waterfall? Is a cascade that only runs after heavy rain? Are the 275 drops at Iguazú one waterfall or 275?
Why there's no count
- No agreed minimum size. Geographers don't agree on how tall or steep a drop has to be before it counts.
- Seasonal falls. Many of the world's tallest waterfalls, including several in Norway, Hawaii and the Andes, run only after snowmelt or rain.
- Systems versus single falls. Plitvice has dozens of named cascades; the Khone Falls on the Mekong spread across about 10 km of channels and islands. Whether they are one waterfall or many is a matter of convention.
- Remote terrain. Large numbers of waterfalls in the Andes, the Himalaya, Greenland, Patagonia and the Guiana Highlands have never been measured, and some big ones were only recorded recently — Gocta in Peru came to international attention in 2006.
What the databases show
The most thorough attempt at a global record is the World Waterfall Database, a long-running project that catalogues and measures waterfalls around the world. It is the source most researchers and guidebooks use for rankings of height and volume, but it does not claim to be complete — and its measured heights sometimes differ from the figures quoted locally.
Our own index is deliberately smaller: 1142 of the world's great waterfalls in 123 countries, chosen because they are worth travelling to and because something can actually be done there. You can browse them by country, by type or on the world map.
Which country has the most waterfalls?
It depends on what you're counting.
- Most tall waterfalls: Norway. Glaciers carved Norway's fjords and hanging valleys so deeply that it has more of the world's very tallest falls than any other country — six of the top twenty in the World Waterfall Database's ranking by total height. See waterfalls in Norway.
- Most waterfalls overall: probably a large, wet, mountainous country — the United States, Canada, Brazil, China or Norway — simply because they have the most rivers crossing steep ground. None has a definitive count.
- Most waterfalls for its size: Iceland is the usual answer. Glacial rivers, heavy rainfall and layered lava plateaus put a waterfall around almost every bend of the Ring Road, and figures of "10,000 or more" are often quoted, though they are estimates rather than a survey. See waterfalls in Iceland.
In our own index, the United States has the most entries, followed by Australia, Canada, Iceland and Norway.
The tallest, the widest and the biggest
Superlatives are just as slippery. Angel Falls in Venezuela is usually named the tallest waterfall in the world at 979 m in total, with an unbroken free fall of about 807 m. Tugela Falls in South Africa is usually named second at 948 m — and some measurements, including the World Waterfall Database's ranking of total height, actually put Tugela first, because they treat the lower cascades below Angel Falls differently. Our list of the tallest waterfalls explains the numbers.
The widest is the Khone Falls system in Laos, about 10.8 km across all its channels. The largest single curtain of falling water is Victoria Falls, 1,708 m wide and 108 m high. See the widest waterfalls.
Where to start
If you want the famous ones, compare Victoria, Iguazú and Niagara. If you want to know what's at its best when you can travel, start with the month-by-month guide. And if you're wondering why there are so many different words for "waterfall" — foss, force, salto, cachoeira — read waterfall names from around the world.
