The story of Rhine Falls

You are standing beside the most powerful waterfall in Europe. The Rhine Falls are 150 metres wide and 23 metres high, and in summer an average of 600 cubic metres of water thunder over them every second. They formed during the last ice age, roughly 14,000 to 17,000 years ago.

The large rock in the middle, the Rheinfallfelsen, is a remnant of the original limestone cliff and is about 150 million years old; it has eroded very little, because relatively little sediment comes down the Rhine from Lake Constance. Industry once had its eye on this water. In 1944 permission was granted for a power station, but in 1951 the New Helvetic Society gathered 150,000 signatures against it, including that of Hermann Hesse.

The petition stopped the project and effectively prevented future hydropower and navigation projects on the upper Rhine. People have visited the falls since the Middle Ages, and in 2014 some 1.3 million visitors were counted.