• Mesa
  • Shimian County

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.

Shimian County, which belongs to Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, is located in the eastern part of the Hengduan Mountains on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the middle reaches of the Dadu River, the southwest of Ya'an City, and its geographical coordinates are 101 °55 in longitude and 102 °34 in longitude and 29 °32 in latitude. Shimian County has a total area of 2678 square kilometers. It belongs to the mountain climate with mid-latitude subtropical monsoon climate as the base belt, with concentrated summer rain, more night rain, less storms and no autumn continuous rain. Shimian County has jurisdiction over 1 street, 1 town, 5 townships and 10 ethnic townships, and the county government is stationed in the streets of Mian City. As of 2018, the total registered population of the county is 128800. In the thirteenth year of Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty (1833), the soil was changed and the land of the fourteen fortresses was placed in Shunhe Township. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was "ready to establish a constitution". Shunhe became an autonomous township of its own, all on the north bank.
Travel Guides In Shimian County
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Travel Notes In Shimian County