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.
Xingtai, known as Xingzhou and Shunde in ancient times, is the prefecture-level city of Hebei Province, the northern gateway city of the Central Plains urban agglomeration and the important node city of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration. By the end of 2018, the city had jurisdiction over 19 counties (cities and districts), with a total area of 12500 square kilometers, a resident population of 7.3744 million, and a regional GDP of 215.076 billion yuan. Xingtai is located in the south of Hebei Province, adjacent to Taihang Mountain and Shanxi Province in the west, the Grand Canal and Shandong Province in the east, Shijiazhuang and Hengshui in the north and Handan in the south. The territory of Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, Beijing-Kowloon Railway, Beijing-Guangzhou High-speed Railway, Beijing-Kowloon High-speed Railway,.