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.
Huize County, which belongs to Qujing City, Yunnan Province, is located in the northeast of Yunnan Province, the east bank of Jinsha River and the northwest of Qujing City, between longitude 103 °55 'east and latitude 25 °48 °27 °04' north. It is adjacent to Xuanwei City and Weining County, Guizhou Province to the east, Zhanyi District to the south, Xundian County in Kunming City to the south, Dongchuan District in Kunming City to the west, Qiaojia County in Zhaotong City to the west, and Ludian County to the north. Huize County has a maximum horizontal distance of 84 kilometers from east to west and a maximum vertical distance from north to south of 138km, with a land area of 5886 square kilometers. Zhongping Town, the county seat, is 2120 meters above sea level, 245km away from Qujing city and 210km away from Kunming, the provincial capital. In 2006, the eight major guild halls in Huize were rated as national key cultural relic protection units; in 2009, Huize was recommended as China 1 by the National Human Geography.