Plateaus

📖 In short

A plateau is a big area of high land with an almost flat top like a table and very steep sides. It looks like a plain that's been lifted up, and rivers often cut deep valleys into it.

🤩 Did you know?

The Najd Plateau is one of the biggest in the world, about 480 thousand square kilometers.
Plateaus range from less than 100 meters to more than 1000 meters high.
The Tibetan Plateau is more than 4000 meters high.
A small flat-topped plateau is sometimes called a “mesa”.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Famous plateaus

Big plateaus around the world include the Tibetan Plateau, the highest in the world, called “the roof of the world”, the Najd Plateau in central Saudi Arabia, and the Ethiopian Highlands.

🔍 How do they form?

Some plateaus rose up when forces inside the Earth slowly pushed rocks upwards, and some are made of volcanic lava that flowed layer upon layer.

💡 Deep valleys

When rivers flow over a plateau, over time they carve very deep valleys into it, like the Grand Canyon on the Colorado Plateau.

🎯 Life on plateaus

On high plateaus it's colder than on the plains and the air is thinner. People raise livestock there, and grow grain where there's plenty of rain.

🧩 Test yourself

1 What is the top of a plateau like?

2 Which plateau is called “the roof of the world”?

3 The Najd Plateau is one of the biggest in the world, about ?? thousand square kilometers.

4 Which picture shows “Plateaus”?

🌋 Discover more

📷 Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons

Patricksfisher1 · CC BY-SA 4.0