Topographically Shilin area is located in Yunnan karst plateau or western Yunnan-Guizhou plateau, which is the second topographical terrace of China’s overall three-step-terrace topography. Some 900km to the west, via central red-soil plateau and Hengduan mountain area, is the Tibet-Qinghai plateau; about 1,000km to the east, via Guizhou karst plateau, is the extensive western Pacific coast hilly country and plains on the third and lowest topographical terrace of China, some 950km to the southeast, via cone-karst and depression area of southeastern Yunnan, is the north coast area of South China Sea and tower-karst and plain of Vietnam.

Positioned in the rolling plateau surface and with highland in the east and south, Shilin area enjoys gentle local relief between altitudes 1700-1950m, except for a few mountain peaks of over 2200m elevation.

In Shilin area Late Paleozoic carbonate rock, in which diverse plateau karst landforms developed, occur extensively. There is a total of 900km² exposed karst within the county, of which, 400km² with stone forest landform. The stone forest landform developed mainly in Middle Permian limestone, which extends from the Naigu Stone Forest in the north to the Suoyishan Stone Forest in the south, a narrow terrain measuring 35 km long and 10 km wide.

Landforms occurred in the Shilin area include plateau hill, low-medium mountain, depression, basin, rock hill, stone forest karst,stone teeth field, cone karst, cave, river valley, etc. of which, the stone forest karst is the most striking and spectaculars landform. Stone pillars of various shapes and sizes with picturesque surface karren grouped as clusters and distributed in various topography, representing a unique plateau karst landform in the world and displaying exceptional natural beauty.