Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park (Sotho: "Musi oa Thunya" [Mosi wa Tunya] ""The Smoke Which Thunders""), is an UNESCO World Heritage site that is home to one half of the Mosi-oa-Tunya "— 'The Smoke Which Thunders' —" known worldwide as Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River. The river forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, so the falls are shared by the two countries, and the park is 'twin' to the Victoria Falls National Park on the Zimbabwean side. ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ comes from the Kololo or Lozi language and the name is now used throughout Zambia, and in parts of
Victoria Falls building of the railway in 1905, though, the falls were seldom visited by other Europeans. Some writers believe that the Portuguese priest Gonçalo da Silveira was the first European to catch sight of the falls back in the sixteenth century. European settlement of the Victoria Falls area started around 1900 in response to the desire of Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company for mineral rights and imperial rule north of the Zambezi, and the exploitation of other natural resources such as timber forests north-east of the falls, and ivory and animal skins. Before 1905, the river was crossed above the