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.
Xinyuan County is located in the northwest of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region, at the northern foot of Tianshan Mountain, at the eastern end of Yili River Valley, and in the Gongnai River Valley. It starts from Aiken Daban in the east, is adjacent to Gongliu County and Hejing County in the south, and is bounded by Nilak County, Shawan County and Hejing County in the northeast. The total population is 316002 (2012). There are 34 ethnic groups, including Kazakh, Han, Uygur and Hui. The name of the county is located in the upper reaches of the Gongnai River, taking another "new source", which means newly reclaimed grassland or newly developed wilderness. The Kazakh language is called Gong Naisi, which means "Xiangyang" (according to textual research, it is Turkic, and later evolved from Mongolian and Kazakh). The geographical coordinates are 82 °28 east longitude, 84 °56 east longitude, 43 °03 north latitude, 43 °40 'north latitude, high east and low west, surrounded by mountains on three sides, and open to the west. It is about 196 km long from east to west and about 196 km wide in the middle.