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.
Fuyuan County, which belongs to Qujing City, is located in the east of Yunnan Province and Qujing City. It is located between 25 °~ 25 °58km north latitude and 103 °58km east longitude, adjacent to Guizhou Panzhou, Qilin District and Zhanyi District in the east, Luoping County in the south, Xingyi City in Guizhou Province in the south and Xuanwei City in the north. It covers an area of 3251 square kilometers and is a mountainous area of the plateau. Fuyuan County is located in the eastern part of the Yunnan Plateau, high in the northwest and low in the southeast, with mountains and canyons. The Wumeng Mountain branch runs through the whole territory from north to south, and belongs to the subtropical monsoon climate. The territory is rich in precipitation, mild in four seasons, and the annual average temperature is about 14 ℃. The river in the territory belongs to the Pearl River basin. At the end of 2017, Fuyuan County had a total household registration population of 833800 and a minority population of 83400, with jurisdiction over nine towns, one township and two streets. two