Angel Falls has a total height of about 979 meters.

The waterfall descends from Auyán-tepui, a flat-topped mountain in the Guiana Highlands. Its immense cliff provides the vertical relief that allows water to fall so far before reaching the lower landscape.

Total height and longest single drop are not interchangeable. The 979-meter figure includes more of the waterfall system, while 807 meters describes the principal unbroken plunge from the cliff.

Angel Falls lies in Canaima National Park in southeastern Venezuela. The wider protected landscape contains many tepuis, so the waterfall is part of a distinctive geological region rather than an isolated tall cliff.

A tepui is a table mountain with a relatively flat summit and steep sides. Auyán-tepui supplies both a high surface over which water can collect and an abrupt edge from which it can descend. This relationship between plateau and cliff is fundamental to the falls: the headline height makes sense only when placed within the surrounding topography.

Guinness World Records lists Angel Falls as the tallest waterfall, giving a total drop of 979 meters and a longest single drop of 807 meters. Its account also notes debate over whether the full 979 meters should be attributed to one waterfall. That caveat is important because rankings can depend on where a survey begins and ends and whether lower cascades are counted together.

The distinction does not make the familiar height meaningless. It means a careful description should identify what is being measured. Subtracting the main plunge from the overall figure gives a difference of 172 meters, but that difference should not be portrayed as a second uninterrupted cliff. It represents additional descent included in the total, rather than another equally defined single drop.

The falls are also known as Kerepakupai Merú, a name rooted in the local Pemón culture. Guinness gives its meaning as waterfall of the deepest place. The English name commemorates the American aviator Jimmie Angel, who recorded the feature after flying over it in 1933. That naming history concerns outside recognition, not the first human knowledge of a place already known to Indigenous communities.

UNESCO inscribed Canaima National Park on the World Heritage List in 1994. The designation applies to the park, not solely to the waterfall. UNESCO describes a protected area of about three million hectares, with table-mountain formations covering roughly 65 percent of it. Cliffs, waterfalls and the distinctive biological environments of the tepuis together explain the park's significance.

UNESCO's introductory description rounds the highest waterfall to about 1,000 meters, whereas the standard record figure is 979 meters. Rounded summaries and more specific measurements can coexist without representing separate waterfalls. For comparisons, however, the same measurement convention should be used throughout: total descent should be compared with total descent, and uninterrupted plunge with uninterrupted plunge.

Angel Falls’ familiar total height and principal uninterrupted drop refer to different portions of the same waterfall system. The distinction matters because the full route of descending water is not always a single unbroken plunge. A record can be accurate while still requiring an explanation of which endpoints and intervening sections its measurement includes.