Angel Falls, Spanish Salto Angel, also called Salto Churun Meru, waterfall in the Guiana Highlands in Bolívar state, southeastern Venezuela, on the Churun River, a tributary of the i, 160 miles (260 km) southeast of Ciudad Bolívar. The highest waterfall in the world, the cataract drops 3,212 feet (979 metres) and is 500 feet (150 metres) wide at the base. It leaps from a flat-topped plateau, Auyan-Tepui(“Devils Mountain”), barely making contact with the sheer face. The falls are located in Canaima National Park, and, because of the dense jungle surrounding the falls, they are best seen from the air.
The falls, first sighted by outsiders in the 1930s, were named for James Angel, an American adventurer who crash-landed his plane on a nearby mesa in 1937. In late 2009 Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez declared that the falls should be referred to as Kerepakupai Meru, an indigenous name.
Angel falls has been in its current location for thousands of years. It will remain there until gravity pulls another block of the highly fractured sandstone away from the mountain. The block will fall to the ground and explode into a catastrophic rain of rock. The river will flow without interruption, but the position of the waterfall will change.
Credit : Britannica
Picture Credit : Google
