• Mesa
  • Shiquan 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.

Shiquan County is located in the west of Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, with Qinling Mountains and Nanqianba Mountain in the north, located in the hinterland of Qinba and the bank of Han River, with a total area of 1525 square kilometers. It is a national key county for poverty alleviation and development. Shiquan County was founded in the first year of Emperor Fei in the Western Wei Dynasty (AD 525). It was named because of "many springs in the stone gap in the south of the city and endless runoff". Shiquan County is a national health county and provincial garden county; it is an important destination of Qinba Han River eco-tourism, known as "Qinba landscape, Shiquan ten beauties"; it is the first sericulture industry county in the west, known as "the source of the Silk Road and the hometown of golden silkworms"; it is an important water conservation place for the national south-to-north water transfer and an important electric energy base in the west. It is an important birthplace of pre-Qin culture. Gui Guzi, the ancestor of the vertical and horizontal school, practiced and taught his apprentice in Shiquan County, also known as the hometown of Gui Guzi.
Travel Sights In Shiquan County
Travel Notes In Shiquan County