A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by a more resistant layer or layers of harder rock, e.g. shales overlain by sandstones. The resistant layer acts as a caprock that forms the flat summit of a mesa. The caprock can consist of either sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and limestone; dissected lava flows; or a deeply eroded duricrust. Unlike plateau, whose usage does not imply horizontal layers of bedrock, e.g. Tibetan Plateau, the term mesa applies exclusively to the landforms built of flat-lying strata. Instead, flat-topped plateaus are specifically known as tablelands.
Balikun, which means "Tiger Lake" in Turkic language, gets its name from Balikun Lake; it is the homonym of "Balkule" in Mongolian, meaning "tiger's front paws", which is named after the dangerous terrain; and it is the ancient Yue language. Balikun Kazakh Autonomous County is an autonomous county under the jurisdiction of Hami City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region. Balikun Kazakh Autonomous County, established on September 30, 1954, is located in northeastern Xinjiang, bordering Yiwu County to the east, Yizhou District to the south, Kazakh Autonomous County to the west, Mongolia to the north, and one of the three Kazakh autonomous counties in the country. it is also a key county for poverty alleviation and development in Xinjiang. it is a typical border county, Gaohan county and disaster-prone county in Xinjiang. it was identified as five categories of areas by China in 2006. The border line between China and Mongolia is 309 kilometers long, and there are seasonally open ports in China.