Limestone, also known as Karst, originates from the Karst Plateau of Republic of Slovenia (northwest of the former Yugoslavia). Karst plateau is a limestone region with bare rock in various forms. In the late nineteenth century, the first karst theoretical concept was created in this region, thus the place name turned into a scientific term in Geology, and has been accepted and used worldwide. Limestone landform is equivalent to karst in China.

As the name implies, karst is the dissolving of rocks. The destruction and reconstruction caused to the soluble stones surface by surface water and underground water is called Karst. That role of the aboveground and underground forms are known as Karst topography.

Karst landscape has tow types as surface karst landform and underground karst landscape: surface water corrodes and erodes the limestone and creates many grooves, meanwhile the prominent part is called Stone Spike. The Stone Spike is usually very tall in the tropical rainy thick layer pure limestone areas, and will be named as Stone Forest; the combination of limestone mountains formed by strong dissolution will be called as Cone Karst and Tower Karst.