A little geography lesson for today courtesy of several Wikipedia pages and Gina:

Mesas and buttes are pretty much just different names for very similar things. Both have steep sides and flat tops. Geographers tend to differentiate between the two based on a ratio of top size to height: “a mesa has a top that is greater than three times its height, while a butte’s top is less than three times its height” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butte).

Of course to the common person on the street the choice of word is often determined by where you are from. The Southwestern US has more mesas than buttes (which are more prevalent to the north).

OK, so what is the difference between a ‘mountain range’ and a ‘mountain chain’? Apparently nothing, according to Wikipedia as both searches take you to the same page.

There you go.

Of course, the EB may have something different to say…

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