Rhine Falls

Interesting facts

The weakest flow on record came in 1921, just 95 cubic metres a second, compared with the 1965 peak of about 1,250.

At that 1921 low, a karst cave four to six metres deep was briefly exposed on the Zurich side.

The limestone of the central rock is about 150 million years old, far older than the waterfall itself.

J. M. W. Turner made several studies and paintings of the falls, and Mary Shelley described her visit of 1840 in Rambles in Germany and Italy.

Fireworks first lit up the falls in 1857, and a large fireworks display around Swiss National Day has been held every year since 1966.

Harnessed in full, the falls could generate an average of about 50 megawatts of electricity.

After the Second World War the falls drew up to three million visitors a year.

The falls have been lit at night by a permanent illumination system since 2008, a centenary gift from the cantonal power company.

Why it is worth it

The Rhine Falls is the most powerful waterfall in Europe, not tall but immensely wide and loud: the young Rhine drops about 23 m over a ledge some 150 m wide, just below the town of Schaffhausen. In summer an average of 600 cubic metres of water a second pours over it, and the greatest flow ever measured, in 1965, was more than twice that. The falls formed at the end of the last ice age, between 14,000 and 17,000 years ago, when the river was pushed onto a bed of hard Jurassic limestone beside softer gravels; the Rheinfallfelsen, the rock that stands defiantly in the middle of the torrent, is a remnant of the old limestone cliff.

Two castles frame the scene. On the Zurich bank, Schloss Laufen sits right above the falls, with viewing platforms beside the falling water reached by steep stairways; on the Schaffhausen side the small Schlössli Wörth stands at the edge of the basin. Boats cross the pool below and take visitors out to the central rock. People have come to look since the Middle Ages, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the falls were a fixed stop on educational journeys through Switzerland.

The falls were very nearly lost. Industry used the site from the seventeenth century, when a blast furnace was built on the north bank, and plans for a hydroelectric station were approved in 1944. In 1951 some 150,000 Swiss, among them Hermann Hesse, signed a petition against the project, which not only stopped it but effectively ended hydropower and navigation schemes on this stretch of the Rhine to this day. The nearby town of Schaffhausen, with its medieval centre, the All Saints monastery and the round Munot fortress, makes a natural companion to a visit; its museum has a permanent display on how the falls were formed.

Getting there

The falls are about 3 km south of Schaffhausen. Zurich Airport (ZRH) is about 25 km away. Neuhausen Rheinfall station on the north bank and Schloss Laufen am Rheinfall station on the south bank are both within walking distance and served by S-Bahn trains; frequent buses also run from Schaffhausen station. A footpath on the railway bridge upstream links the two banks.

Rhine Falls

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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