The answer depends on how you measure “largest,” so here’s a quick breakdown:
Tallest
- Angel Falls, Venezuela: about 979 m (3,212 ft), the tallest uninterrupted waterfall.
- Tugela Falls, South Africa: about 948 m (3,110 ft) across five drops.
- Tres Hermanas Falls, Peru: about 914 m (3,000 ft) in three tiers.
Widest
- Khone Falls, Laos: roughly 10 km across the Mekong, the widest in the world.
Greatest flow
- Inga Falls, DR Congo: around 25,000 m³/s on the Congo River, though it’s a series of rapids rather than one big drop.
- Niagara Falls, Canada/US: the most powerful in North America.
Biggest by scale and spectacle
- Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe: about 1,700 m wide and 108 m tall, often called the largest sheet of falling water.
- Iguazú Falls, Argentina/Brazil: about 275 separate cascades spread over nearly 3 km.
Largest of all: underwater
- Denmark Strait cataract, between Greenland and Iceland: dense cold water sinks over 3,500 m at about 3 million m³/s, dwarfing any waterfall on land.
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