According to the web site www.worldwaterfalldatabase.com, Khonephapheng Falls in Khong District, Champassak Province has been declared the most important waterfall on the planet.
The World Waterfall database lists the world’s largest waterfalls by width and ranks Laos’ natural wonder as the primary. The representative list includes those known to have a median width of at the very least 91.44 m based on data available on the web site.
The website mentions the size of the waterfall and that Khonphapheng Falls is a series of waterfalls and rapids where the Mekong River splits into seven large channels and a whole lot of smaller ones. It cascades 20 meters long, making a series of waterfalls and rapids that, when measured from one rim to the opposite, stretch over 10 kilometers wide, making it the widest waterfall on the planet.
Due to the big volume of the Mekong River, the quantity of rainfall in each river channel varies. The most dramatic parts of the waterfall drop about 40 feet at an angle of about 60 degrees, but other parts of the river, including the most important channel, look more like a series of rapids.
There doesn’t seem like any noticeable rapids in one in all the smallest channels – reasonably it slopes slowly and steadily down the escarpment. During the monsoon season, the overflowing river completely swallows the waterfall, leaving only a turbulent belt of waves and crashes.
In the World Waterfall Database rankings, the world’s largest waterfall by width is the Khonphapheng Falls on the Mekong River at 10,783 meters, followed by Para at 5,608 meters on the Rio Caura in Venezuela; Guaira at 4,828 meters on the Rio Parana in Brazil; Kongou falls from 3,200 meters on the Ivindo River in Gabon, and Iguazu falls from 2,682 meters on the Rio Lguazu in Argentina.
The World Waterfall database was created to offer a whole and accurate record of waterfalls around the globe. When searching through any open-access encyclopedia, entries for waterfalls often provide a brief list of well-known or well-publicized waterfalls, but these lists are removed from complete and are often riddled with inaccuracies because the info has never been field-checked. Most persons are unaware of those discrepancies because experts in the sphere haven’t been in a position to easily confirm the info on such a broad basis.
(various sources)
