Iguazu Falls feet, are a third shorter). Often, Iguazu also is compared with Victoria Falls in Southern Africa, which separates Zambia and Zimbabwe. Iguazu is wider, but because it is split into roughly 275 distinct falls and large islands, Victoria has the largest curtain of water in the world, at more than wide and over in height (in low flow, Victoria is split into five by islands; in high flow it may be uninterrupted). The only wider falls are extremely large rapid-like falls, such as the Boyoma Falls (Stanley Falls). With the flooding of the Guaíra Falls in 1982, Iguazu currently has
Victoria Falls of kilometres in all directions. The falls are formed as the full width of the river plummets in a single vertical drop into a transverse chasm wide, carved by its waters along a fracture zone in the basalt plateau. The depth of the chasm, called the First Gorge, varies from at its western end to in the centre. The only outlet to the First Gorge is a wide gap about two-thirds of the way across the width of the falls from the western end. The whole volume of the river pours into the Victoria Falls gorges from this narrow cleft.