Murchison Falls, also known as Kabalega Falls, is a

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

at the apex of Lake Albert on the

Victoria Nile The White Nile ( ar, النيل الأبيض ') is a river in Africa, one of the two main tributaries of the Nile, the other being the Blue Nile. The name comes from the clay sediment carried in the water that changes the water to a pale color. ...

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

. At the top of Murchison Falls, the Nile forces its way through a gap in the rocks, only wide, and tumbles , before flowing westward into Lake Albert. The outlet of

Lake Victoria Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface area after ...

sends around 300 cubic meters per second (11,000 ft³/s) of water over the falls, squeezed into a gorge less than wide. Some historians believe that a party of

Roman legionaries The Roman legion ( la, legiō, ) was the largest military unit of the Roman army, composed of 5,200 infantry and 300 equites (cavalry) in the period of the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC) and of 5,600 infantry and 200 auxilia in the period of ...

dispatched by

Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...

may have reached the Murchison Falls in 61 AD, but there is major controversy about the feasibility of what would have been a very difficult achievement.

Samuel Baker Sir Samuel White Baker, Order of the Bath, KCB, Royal Society, FRS, Royal Geographical Society, FRGS (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) was an English List of explorers, explorer, Officer (armed forces), officer, naturalist, big game hunter, ...

and

Florence Baker Florence, Lady Baker or Florica Maria Sas; Barbara Szász; Maria Freiin von Sass; Barbara Szasz; Barbara Maria Szász; Barbara Maria Szasz (6 August 1841 – 11 March 1916) was a Hungarian-born British explorer. Born in Transylvania (then Kingdom ...

were the first Europeans who definitely sighted them. Baker named them after

Roderick Murchison Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet, (19 February 1792 – 22 October 1871) was a Scotland, Scottish geologist who served as director-general of the British Geological Survey from 1855 until his death in 1871. He is noted for investigat ...

, the President of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

. The falls lend their name to the surrounding

Murchison Falls National Park Murchison Falls National Park (MFNP) is a national park in Uganda and managed by the Ugandan Wildlife Authority. It is in north-western Uganda, spreading inland from the shores of Lake Albert (Africa), Lake Albert, around the Victoria Nile, up to ...

. During the regime of

Idi Amin Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 16 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He ruled as a military dictator and is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern w ...

in the 1970s, the name was changed to Kabalega Falls, after the

Omukama {{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 Omukama: often translated as "king of kings", (O)Mukama means in Bantu languages, Bantu (Banyoro-, Batoro- and other languages) something like "superior milkman/milkbringer". The title "Omukama" is used in the regi ...

(King)

Kabalega of Bunyoro Chwa II Kabalega (18 June 1853 – 6 April 1923), was the ruler or Omukama of Bunyoro, Omukama of Bunyoro in Uganda from 1870 to 1899. Biography In 1869, Kyebambe IV of Bunyoro, Kamurasi died, and two of the legitimate royal candidates, Kabalega ...

, although this was never legally promulgated. The name reverted to Murchison Falls following the downfall of Amin. It is still sometimes referred to as Kabalega Falls.

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

crashed a plane just downriver from Murchison Falls in 1954. In August 2019, Uganda rejected a hydropower project by South Africa’s Bonang Power and Energy in order to preserve the Falls, one of the country's most lucrative tourism sites.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Murchison Falls Waterfalls of Uganda Nile

See also

References

External links