Murchison Falls

At the top of the falls the water is squeezed into a gorge less than 10 metres wide, carrying roughly 300 cubic metres per second before dropping into the gorge and spilling into Lake Albert. Visitors can watch the torrent force its way through the rock opening, then tumble over the 43‑metre drop, a sight amplified by the roar of the river and the spray that reaches the surrounding cliffs. The falls give their name to Murchison Falls National Park, the protected area that surrounds the site.

Samuel and Florence Baker were the first Europeans to record the falls, naming them after Roderick Murchison, then President of the Royal Geographical Society. During Idi Amin’s regime the name was altered to Kabalega Falls after the Bunyoro king, a change never formalised; the original name returned after Amin’s fall, though the alternative name still appears. In 1954 Ernest Hemingway’s plane crashed just downstream, and in August 2019 Uganda rejected a proposed hydropower scheme to keep the falls intact, preserving a key tourism attraction. The sheer force of water forced through a 7‑metre fissure defines the character of Murchison Falls.