Kaieteur Falls is the Guyanese waterfall known for its extraordinary power and single drop of 226 meters. It plunges over a sandstone and conglomerate cliff on the Potaro River in Kaieteur National Park, in central Guyana.
Its fame comes from an unusual combination of height and water volume. The main drop measures 226 meters, or 741 feet, while the full descent including lower cascades reaches about 251 meters. The falls carry an average flow of roughly 660 cubic meters of water per second, making Kaieteur one of the world’s most powerful single-drop waterfalls.
Kaieteur is not the world’s tallest waterfall—that distinction belongs to Angel Falls in Venezuela. Nor is it the widest or the largest by total volume. Its distinctive claim is the force produced by a very high uninterrupted plunge combined with a substantial river flow. It is also roughly four and a half times as high as Niagara Falls.
Indigenous peoples knew the falls long before European exploration. British geologist Charles Barrington Brown recorded them for Europeans in 1870. The name is associated with an Indigenous Patamona legend about Chief Kai, who sacrificed himself to protect his people.