Kaieteur is the world’s largest single-drop waterfall. Located on the Potaro River in the Kaieteur National Park, it sits in a section of the Amazon rainforest included in the Potaro-Siparuni region of Guyana. It is 226 meters high when measured from its plunge over a sandstone and conglomerate cliff to the first break. It then flows over a series of steep cascades that, when included in the measurements, bring the total height to 251 meters. While many falls have greater height, few have the combination of height and water volume, and Kaieteur is among the most powerful waterfalls in the world with an average flow rate of 663 cubic meters per second.

Kaieteur Falls is about four and a half times the height of Niagara Falls, on the border between Canada and the United States, and about twice the height of Victoria Falls, on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa. It is a single-drop waterfall.

The falls were rediscovered by Europeans in 1870 by a party led by Charles Barrington Brown, a British geologist appointed as a government surveyor to the colony of British Guiana. Brown and his partner James Sawkins had arrived in Georgetown in 1867, and while they did some of their mapping and preparation of geological reports together, some work was performed in separate expeditions, and Sawkins was taking a break from his work at the time of Brown’s discovery of Kaieteur. At this point, Brown did not have time to investigate Kaieteur Falls closely, so he returned one year later to make comprehensive measurements.

Such a landmark comes with a blend of folklore, culture, and historical relevance. Several stories swirl around the falls. One story claims a chief named Kai volunteered himself to paddle a canoe over the falls as an offering to the great spirit Makonaima in order to save his people from a neighboring tribe. Another legend claims an old man’s family was forced into a boat and sent over the crashing water. Either way, the name Kaieteur stems from words in the Patamona language, where Kayik Tuwuk means Old Man’s, and teur means falls. Hence, Kaieteur Falls translates to Old Man’s Falls.

The falls are especially remote, surrounded by the lush rainforest of Guyana. Despite this, tourists can access the falls by chartering a plane and following a hiking tour to the top. There is even a special airstrip, Kaieteur Airstrip, which is only a 15-minute walk from the falls and is often used by plane tours that run directly from the two Georgetown airports: Eugene F. Correia International Airport (formerly Ogle Airport) and Cheddi Jagan International Airport.

According to Wikipedia