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.
Leling, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Dezhou City, Shandong Province, is located at the junction of two provinces and four cities of Shandong and Hebei (Dezhou-Binzhou-Cangzhou-Jinan); it is part of the North China Plain, alluvial from the Yellow River and flat; there are Zhangwei River, Magee River and Dehuixin River; it is a warm temperate semi-humid continental monsoon climate with four distinct seasons; it has 4 streets, 9 towns and 3 townships under its jurisdiction, with a total population of 724000 in 2018. In addition, Leling is also a national intellectual property rights strong county project demonstration county (district). In 2018, the regional GDP of Leling City reached 27.962 billion yuan, an increase of 7.5% over 2017 in terms of comparable prices. On December 7, 2018, it was selected into the cultural tourism charm list of 2018 "Charming Chinatown". The second batch of water-saving society construction up to the standard county (district). ..