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.
Nanping, a prefecture-level city in Fujian Province, is located in the north of Fujian Province and on the southeast side of the northern section of the Wuyi Mountains, at the junction of Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces, commonly known as "Minbei", bordering Zhejiang Province in the northeast, Jiangxi Province in the northwest, Ningde City in the southeast, Sanming City in the southwest, between 26 °15 degrees north latitude and 28 °19 degrees east longitude, 117 °00 degrees east longitude, covering an area of 26300 square kilometers, accounting for 1/5 of Fujian Province. During the Revolutionary War, the Fujian Provincial Party Committee was stationed in northern Fujian for several times and was known as the red land where the red flag will not fall. Nanping has jurisdiction over 2 municipal districts, 5 counties and 3 county-level cities; in 2016, the registered population was 3.2126 million (permanent resident population 2.66 million); in 2016, the city achieved a regional GDP of 1457.