Tallest waterfall
記録保持者
Kerepakupai Merú, aka Salto Ángel or Angel Falls
内容
979 metre(s)
場所
ベネズエラ ()

The tallest waterfall is Kerepakupai Merú, aka Salto Ángel or Angel Falls, located on a branch of the Carrao River, an upper tributary of the Caroní River, in eastern Venezuela, with a total drop of 979 m (3,212 ft); its longest single drop, which is also a record, is 807 m (2,648 ft).

The name Kerepakupai Merú comes from the local indigenous Pemón culture and means "waterfall of the deepest place". It is sometimes also referred to as Parakupá Vená ("the fall from the highest place"). The waterfall emerges from a flat-topped mountain, known as the Auyán tepui, in the dense tropical forest of Canaima National Park in the state of Bolívar.

It acquired its alternative name of "Angel Falls" after the American pilot Jimmie Angel (d. 8 December 1956) recorded the natural feature in his logbook after flying over it in November 1933.

Last surveyed as part of a National Geographic expedition in 1949, there is now some debate around whether the full extent of the 979 m should be attributed to a single waterfall. If its actual full height is "only" the initial 807-m drop, that would make the multi-drop 948-m (3,110-ft) Tugela Falls in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, the world's tallest waterfall overall.

No terrestrial waterfall is as high as the Denmark Strait Cataract, discovered in 1989, which is located underwater in the Atlantic Ocean and so not generally visible. The cold water plunges more than 3.5 km (2.2 mi) from the Greenland Sea into the slightly warmer Irminger Sea, with a flow of around 5 million cubic metres per second.