Victoria Falls Hotel Entrance Postcard

Flags of many nations line the drive to The Victoria Falls Hotel, an historic hotel at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in Africa. The hotel is dramatically situated, with a view of the Second Gorge and the Victoria Falls Bridge from its terrace. The hotel was opened in 1904 to accommodate passengers on the newly built railway, part of the planned Cape to Cairo Railway. Later it was a staging post for the BOAC flying boat service between Southampton and South Africa. The hotel has accommodated royal visitors on several occasions, including King George VI and his family in April 1947. Photos of the British royal family from this visit are on the walls of the hotel and include many of the current Queen Elizabeth II. Victoria Falls is a town in the province of Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe. It lies on the southern bank of the Zambezi River at the western end of the Victoria Falls themselves. While Victoria Falls is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall in the world, it is classified as the largest, based on its width of 1,708 metres (5,604 ft) and height of 108 metres (354 ft), resulting in the world's largest sheet of falling water. Victoria Falls is roughly twice the height of North America's Niagara Falls and well over twice the width of its Horseshoe Falls. In height and width Victoria Falls is rivalled only by Argentina and Brazil's Iguazu Falls. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary and explorer, is believed to have been the first European to view Victoria Falls on 16 November 1855 from what is now known as Livingstone Island, one of two land masses in the middle of the river, immediately upstream from the falls on the Zambian side. Livingstone named his discovery in honour of Queen Victoria, but the indigenous name, Mosi-oa-Tunya—"the smoke that thunders"— also continues in common usage. Victoria Falls is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.