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.
Songming County, which belongs to Kunming City, Yunnan Province, is located in the middle of Yunnan Province and in the northeast of Kunming City. It is a suburb county under the jurisdiction of Kunming City, 43 kilometers away from Kunming. It is bordered by Yiliang to the east, Kunming Guandu to the south, Fumin to the southwest, Xundian to the northwest and north, and Malone to the northeast. It covers an area of 1357.29 square kilometers with a total population of 339700. Songyang Town, where the government is stationed, is the political, economic and cultural center of Songming County. In 2012, the GDP reached 6.502 billion yuan, including 1.14 billion yuan for the primary industry, 3.55 billion yuan for the secondary industry and 1.76 billion yuan for the tertiary industry. Songming County is known as "granary in central Yunnan", "hometown of lanterns" and "hometown of dragons and lions". In November 2018, he was named on the list of China's 100 Happy Counties in 2018.