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.
Tuquan County is one of the counties under the jurisdiction of Xingan in Inner Mongolia Autonomous region, which is renamed by Liquan County. Located in the southwest of Xingan, Inner Mongolia Autonomous region, it is located in the transitional zone between Songnen Plain and Horqin grassland in Daxing'an Mountains, and borders Taonan City, Jilin Province in the east. Tuquan County has a total area of 4889.5 square kilometers and has jurisdiction over 6 towns and 6 townships. The total population is 303000, of which the agricultural population is 216000, living in 14 ethnic groups such as Han, Mongolia and Manchuria, and the population of ethnic minorities is 92500, accounting for 30.5% of the total population of the county. It is the autonomous region's key support to the old revolutionary base areas, the national poverty-stricken areas and the national key counties in poverty alleviation and development. In 2013, the GDP of Tuquan County was 6.06 billion yuan, an increase of 8.2% over the same period in 2012.