David Livingstone 'discovered' the Falls in 1855, the local Batonga people had named them Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders'. Livingstone named them for his queen.

While the indigenous Batoka and Matabele people had known the falls for centuries as Mosi-oa-Tunya ("The Smoke that Thunders"), the first European to "find" and document Victoria Falls was the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone. On November 17, 1855, Livingstone reached the falls during his transcontinental journey across Africa. He was paddled in a canoe to a small island on the very edge of the precipice (now known as Livingstone Island) by local guides. Overwhelmed by the sight, he famously wrote that "scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight." He renamed the falls in honor of Queen Victoria, the reigning British monarch at the time. Livingstone’s detailed journals and maps brought the falls to the attention of the Western world, sparking an era of exploration and eventual tourism that continues to define the region in 2026 as a premier natural wonder on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.