Kaieteur Falls

카이에투르 폭포

Kaieteur Falls is a huge waterfall on the Potaro River in Kaieteur National Park, deep in the rainforest of Guyana, South America. The water plunges 226 metres over a sandstone and conglomerate cliff to the first break. It then tumbles down a series of steep cascades, bringing the total height to about 251 metres.

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At a glance

Country: Guyana
Location: Kaieteur National Park, Guyana
Height: 226 m
Type: Waterfall

Quick answers

Where is Kaieteur Falls?

Kaieteur Falls is in Kaieteur National Park, Guyana.

How tall is Kaieteur Falls?

Kaieteur Falls is about 226 m tall.

The Potaro River plunges 226 m in a single drop here, making it one of the most powerful single-drop waterfalls in the world.

It is about four and a half times as high as Niagara Falls and roughly twice as high as Victoria Falls. Many falls are taller or wider, but few combine height and water volume. Kaieteur is described as one of the most powerful single-drop waterfalls in the world, with an average flow of about 663 cubic metres of water per second.

Discovery and legend

Indigenous peoples knew the falls long before Europeans did. A party led by the British geologist Charles Barrington Brown, working as a government surveyor, noticed them in 1870. He had little time at first, so he returned the next year to measure them carefully.

A Patamona legend says the falls are named for a chief called Kuik'tuwuk, who sacrificed himself to save his people by paddling over the edge in his canoe. The name is also said to mean "old man fall".

A high plateau

Upriver from the falls, the Potaro Plateau stretches out toward the distant wall of the Pakaraima Mountains. The Potaro River later empties into the Essequibo River, the longest river in Guyana.

The falls lie in the middle of the rainforest, which is why they stay so wild and little visited.

Getting there and on screen

Most visitors arrive by small plane from Georgetown, landing at an airstrip about a 15-minute walk from the top of the falls.

The falls appear in Werner Herzog's film The White Diamond, and in a David Attenborough episode of Life on Earth, which talks about the frogs that thrive in the damp air. The hero of the anime G Gundam trains under them.