Abstract: A cooling tower with corrugated ripple plate for a substantially vertical assembly in wet cooling towers or combined wet-dry cooling towers in counter-flow or cross-flow construction, of which the portion at the upper end, the corrugation and the spacing relative to the respective adjacent equally-formed ripple plates are formed such that cooling water which is distributed from a distribution device above the ripple plate ripples running down on both surfaces of the ripple plates as substantially uniform thickness water films, the latter being collected in water collector channels arranged at the lower ends of the ripple plates and being fed to a cooling water circuit. One water collector channel is attached on the lower edge of the ripple plates on each side thereof for collecting the water adjacent the lower ends of the ripple plates, from which the collected water is fed back to the cooling water circuit to the distributor device.