Kaieteur Falls is on the Potaro River in Guyana. It stands inside Kaieteur National Park, in the rainforest of central Guyana’s Essequibo region.
The waterfall drops 226 metres in a single plunge over sandstone and conglomerate rock. Including the cascades below the main drop, its total height reaches about 251 metres. Its combination of height and immense water volume makes it one of the world’s most powerful single-drop waterfalls.
Kaieteur’s average flow is roughly 663 cubic metres per second—far greater than many taller waterfalls. The main drop is about four and a half times the height of Niagara Falls and roughly twice the height of Victoria Falls. The Potaro eventually joins the Essequibo, Guyana’s longest river.
Indigenous peoples knew the falls long before European visitors. British geologist Charles Barrington Brown recorded them in 1870. The name is associated with a Patamona legend about an old man who sacrificed himself by paddling over the falls to save his people.