Waterfall Spot is a field guide to waterfalls in the United States. It lists 3,700+ named falls, each with its own page: where it is, how tall it is when a source says so, how to get there, and what the river is doing today when a USGS stream gauge sits nearby.
Why this site exists
Waterfall information is scattered. The height is on one site, the trailhead on another, the parking fee on a park PDF, and whether the falls are even running depends on rain you can’t see from home. This site puts those pieces on one page per fall and says plainly when a piece is missing.
How the listings are built
- Locations come from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain) and OpenStreetMap.
- Heights are checked against a published source. A height without one is marked unverified and kept out of the tallest lists.
- Flow comes from USGS Water Services when a gauge is linked to the fall. It is a live reading, not a guess.
- Weather on each page comes from Open-Meteo for the fall’s coordinates.
- Descriptions and photos come from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, credited on the page under their licenses.
When a value is unknown, the page leaves it blank. No hike length, swim rule or fee is shown unless a source listed it. The full list is on our data sources page.
What this site is not
Waterfall Spot is independent. It is not run by, or connected to, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the USGS, or any state park agency. We have not stood at the base of every fall listed here, so the on-the-ground details lean on public sources and on reviews from people who have been. Conditions change fast near moving water. Check with the land manager before you go, and read the disclaimer.
Reviews from visitors
Anyone can rate a fall from 1 to 5 and say what the visit was like. A first review is held until we approve it, which keeps spam and personal attacks off the pages. We don’t edit a review to change its rating or meaning.
Help keep it right
If a height is wrong, a fall is missing, a photo credit is off, or a trail has closed, tell us and include a source if you have one. Corrections with a source are fixed first. You can also fix the data where it lives; the add or correct a fall page explains how.