A plateau is defined as an elevated tract of relatively flat land, usually limited on at least one side by a steep slope falling abruptly to a lower land. It may also be delimited in places by abrupt slopes rising to residual mountains or mountain ranges, as in the Tibetan Plateau, where it occurs as an intermontane plateau.

Briefly, plateaux are the highlands with large summit areas of flattish surfaces. Usually there is an abrupt rise or fall from the surface of a plateau to the adjacent land. The surface of a plateau may be like those of plains – very flat, rolling or hilly.

Plateaus are generally dissected by rivers and it is difficult to recognise their original plateau characteristics. Since its surface has the appearance of a table, hence a plateau is called a tableland.

The average height of a plateau has been determined 600 m above the Sea Level, but there are plateaus which rise to a much greater height. The Ladakh Plateau in India has its heights ranging from 5,300 to 5,800 m.

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However, with complete disregard for the absolute height of the plateaux, their local relief is very small. It is to be noted that plateaux occur on every continent and cover about 40 percent of the land.

Plateaux are also called highlands or table lands. But the term highland is relative in the sense that many plateaux are higher than some mountains and many plains happen to be higher than some plateaux.

Great plateaux and some small ones are closely related with mountains. Such plateaus were formed by diastrophism or volcanism. Many small plateaux are just the remnants left standing above the surrounding land as a result of erosion.

However, it is to be noted that all the highest plateaux of the world owe their origin to diastrophism. Later on they might have been modified by various agencies of erosion, and is many cases by volcanism and minor earth movements.

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According to genetic classifications, plateaus are highlands uncertain by uplifted horizontal strata. According to this classification structure not topography is the deciding factor.

But the genetic classification has created a lot of controversy, and is not acceptable to the advocates of empirical classification.

If the genetic classification is accepted, then the plateaus like those of Tibet and Bolivia would not be plateaus because they are not underlain by horizontal strata.