The action processes and the phenomena caused therefrom where water conducts chemical erosion (and including erosion effect of running water and gravity, as well as material migration and sedimentation, etc.) on soluble rocks (carbonatite, sulphate rocks and haloid rocks) as the major action process are called karst in general. Therefore, karst can have multiple meaning at different occasions, such as “karst phenomenon”, “Karstification”, etc.
“Karst” is initially the name of a place located at Istria Peninsula in Slovenia. Because this place is close to Italy, the Italian call it "Carso"while the German call it "Karst". The early research document about these limestone landscapes are mostly in German, hereafter "Karst"is used to describe this kind of landform phenomenon far and wide, and even in English this word is used instead. Like other countries in the world, China also takes this term when describing or making research about the limestone landform breeding peculiar mountains and caves, and transliterates it as "喀斯特 (Ka Si Te)"in Chinese.
In 1966, "喀斯特 (Ka Si Te)" was changed to "岩溶 (Yan Rong)" in the second Karst Academic Conference of Chian. In 1981, a decision made at the North Karst Academic Conference held in Shanxi province that both“岩溶 (Yan Rong)” and “喀斯特 (Ka Si Te)” can refer to Karst.
 
Landscape of China Guilin (Left) and Slovenia Karst plateau