Tugela Falls is a complex of seasonal waterfalls located in the Drakensberg (Dragon's Mountains) of Royal Natal National Park in KwaZulu-Natal Province, Republic of South Africa. It is generally accepted as the world's second-tallest waterfall but there is an argument that it is actually the tallest waterfall in the world, rather than Venezuela's Angel Falls.The combined total drop of its five distinct free-leaping falls is 948m. In 2016, however, a Czech scientific expedition took new measuments, making the falls 983 m tall. The data were sent to the World Waterfall Database for confirmation. The source of the Tugela River (Zulu for 'sudden') is the Mont-Aux-Sources plateau which extends several kilometers beyond The Amphitheatre escarpment from which the falls drop.Height controversyThere is an argument that Tugela Falls is the tallest waterfall in the world, rather than the more commonly cited Angel Falls. This argument is based on two likely inaccuracies regarding the presumed heights of the respective falls.Firstly, many now believe Angel Falls is not as tall as was initially surveyed by American journalist Ruth Robertson in 1949. The quoted figure of 979m corresponds almost precisely with the difference in altitude between the top of the falls and the confluence of the Rio Gauja and the Rio Churun, which is roughly 2km away from the base of the Auyan Tepui escarpment and 1.6km downstream from the last segment of the Rio Gauja that could possibly be considered a ‘waterfall’.
