Murchison Falls

Murchison Falls, also known as Kabalega Falls, is a waterfall between Lake Kyoga and Lake Albert on the Victoria Nile River in Uganda. At the top of Murchison Falls, the Nile forces its way through a gap in the rocks, only 7 metres (23 ft) wide, and tumbles 43 metres (141 ft), before flowing westward into Lake Albert. The outlet of Lake Victoria sends around 300 cubic meters per second (11,000 ft³/s) of water over the falls, squeezed into a gorge less than ten metres (30 ft) wide.

Sir Samuel and Florence Baker were the first Europeans to find them. Baker named them after Sir Roderick Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society. The falls lend their name to the surrounding Murchison Falls National Park.

During the regime of Idi Amin in the 1970s the name was changed to Kabalega Falls, after the Omukama (King) Kabalega of Bunyoro, although this was never legally promulgated. The name reverted to Murchison Falls following the downfall of Idi Amin. It is still sometimes referred to as Kabalega Falls.

Ernest Hemingway crashed a plane just downriver from Murchison Falls in 1954.