Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wants to rename the world's highest waterfall, the Angel Falls in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar, national media reported.

"How could we accept this idea that the falls were discovered by a guy who came from the United States in a plane?" Hugo Chavez said on his radio and TV-show "Hello Mr. President."

"If we do that, that would be like accepting that nobody was living here."

The falls are named after 1930's U.S. aviator Jimmy Angel, who is believed to have been the first outsider to see them.

"One could say he was the first one to see it from a plane," Chavez said. "But how many millions of indigenous eyes saw it, and prayed to it?

Chavez initially said the falls would revert to their indigenous name of Churun-Meru, but was corrected by his daughter, Maria, who pointed out that the correct Pemon Indian was Kerepakupai-Meru, meaning "waterfall of the deepest place."

The waterfall is 3,212 feet (979 meters) high, with an uninterrupted drop of 2,648 feet (807 meters). It is one of Venezuela's most famous tourist destinations.

MOSCOW, December 21 (RIA Novosti)