Places and Geography

The internal travel geography of 1 Nephi’s journey, together with named places from later books as the wiki reaches them (currently the cities destroyed in 3 Nephi 8–9, the rebuilding of 4 Nephi, the New World land Bountiful of the visitation, the lands of the final Nephite war down to Cumorah, and the tower of Sherrizah and Moriantum of Mormon’s last epistle in Moroni 9). Every named place the text gives, with its own verse citation. This page maps only what the text says about its own world. Real-world correspondence — what any location might be identifiable as archaeologically or geographically — is an external question explicitly outside this wiki’s scope. Where the text itself glosses a name, that gloss is quoted.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the starting point of the entire narrative. Lehi is described as “having dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days” (1 Nephi 1:4); Nephi’s mother Sariah and brothers Laman, Lemuel, and Sam are with him there (2:5). The Lord commands Lehi to depart because the city faces destruction (1:13; 2:1–2). Lehi’s sons return to Jerusalem three times — once for the brass plates (chs. 3–4), once to bring Ishmael’s household (ch. 7), and once more for the daughters of Ishmael (implied in the completion of 7:22 and the marriages of 16:7). The text treats “the land of Jerusalem” (7:2) and “the city of Jerusalem” as a known point of origin; it does not describe the city’s layout or physical features.

The borders near the Red Sea

After departing Jerusalem, the family “came down by the borders near the shore of the Red Sea; and he traveled in the wilderness in the borders which are nearer the Red Sea” (2:5). The text names the Red Sea as the geographic frame of this early travel but does not give the route a name.

The valley and river of Lemuel

Three days after departing Jerusalem, Lehi “pitched his tent in a valley by the side of a river of water” (2:6). Lehi names the river “Laman” and the valley follows from that: “the valley was in the borders near the mouth thereof” (2:8). In 2:10 Lehi speaks to Lemuel about “this valley,” and in 16:6 the valley is called “the valley which he called Lemuel.” The text specifies that the river “emptied into the fountain of the Red Sea” (2:8–9), placing the valley at the river’s mouth where it meets the Red Sea. This becomes the base of operations for chapters 2–16; Lehi “dwelt in a tent” here (2:15), Nephi receives his vision here (chs. 11–14, with the vision received after the family has returned to this tent), and the marriages of chapter 16 take place here (16:6–7).

Shazer

After the commanded departure from the valley of Lemuel, the group crosses “the river Laman” (16:12) and then: “we traveled for the space of four days, nearly a south-southeast direction, and we did pitch our tents again; and we did call the name of the place Shazer” (16:13). The text gives no further description of Shazer beyond its direction from the starting point and the name. After hunting from Shazer the group continues “following the same direction, keeping in the most fertile parts of the wilderness, which were in the borders near the Red Sea” (16:14).

The more fertile parts / the Liahona’s guidance

From Shazer onward the text does not name specific intermediate waypoints; it describes direction and terrain. The Liahona — a “round ball of curious workmanship … of fine brass” found at the tent door (16:10) — guides the party “in the more fertile parts of the wilderness” (16:16). After Nephi breaks his bow the group camps for a time (16:17) and Nephi hunts from an unnamed mountain (16:30–31). The journey then continues “traveling nearly the same course” (16:33) until the death of Ishmael.

Nahom

“It came to pass that Ishmael died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom” (1 Nephi 16:34). The text uses the past-tense passive “was called,” suggesting the name pre-existed rather than being coined by the travelers. The name appears only at 16:34 in 1 Nephi. After the burial, the text notes the group traveled “nearly eastward from that time forth” (17:1), which is the only directional marker linking Nahom to the subsequent leg of the journey.

Whether “the place which was called Nahom” (1 Nephi 16:34) corresponds to a real location identifiable by archaeology or inscription is an external, real-world question outside this wiki’s scope. The wiki maps the text’s internal world and leaves real-world correspondence to other works.

Bountiful and the sea Irreantum

After eight years in the wilderness (17:4), the company arrives at a named destination: “we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish” (17:5). The sea beside it is also named and glossed: “we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters” (17:5). The text thus provides its own translation of Irreantum. Verse 17:6 confirms the name of the place again: “we called the place Bountiful, because of its much fruit.” The camp is “by the seashore” (17:6). It is at Bountiful that Nephi builds the ship (17:7–18:4).

The sea crossing

The ship departs from Bountiful: “we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land” (18:8). The text does not name the ocean or the route. A storm drives the ship backward “for the space of three days” when the compass fails (18:13), and after four days total Nephi is loosed and guides the ship back on course (18:15, 18:21–22). The text describes the crossing as a sea voyage to the promised land; no islands, coasts, or intermediate stops are named.

The promised land

The destination is reached at 1 Nephi 18:23: “we did arrive at the promised land; and we went forth upon the land, and did pitch our tents; and we did call it the promised land.” The name “land of promise” or “promised land” is used throughout 1 Nephi as the destination — first announced to Nephi by the Lord in the wilderness: “ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands” (2:20). The text does not name the continent, region, or any geographic features of the promised land beyond its arrival. Chapter 18:24–25 notes that seeds brought from Jerusalem grew, that beasts of various kinds were found in the forests, and that ore was found.

The destroyed cities (3 Nephi 8–9)

In the thirty-fourth year, “in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm, such an one as never had been known in all the land” (3 Nephi 8:5), and the upheaval that followed destroyed cities across the land at the hour marked as the sign of Christ’s death. The text records the catastrophe in two layers. Chapter 8 narrates three cities falling as the storm strikes (Zarahemla, Moroni, Moronihah — 8:8–10). Then, out of the three days of darkness, “a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the earth” (9:1) — identifying itself as “Jesus Christ the Son of God” (9:15) — recounts the destruction and completes the roll to sixteen named cities (9:3–10), naming for each the manner of its ruin and, for most, the stated purpose: “to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come up any more unto me against them” (9:7).

Each named city, with the text’s own description of how it was destroyed:

The three cities named in both chapters (Zarahemla, Moroni, Moronihah) carry a citation to each; the remaining thirteen are named only in the voice’s recital of chapter 9.

Moronihah — two descriptions of one event. The narration says “the earth was carried up upon the city of Moronihah, that in the place of the city there became a great mountain” (8:10); the voice says “that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth” (9:5). Both are reported as the text’s own wording for the same destruction.

Jacobugath and the secret combinations. Of Jacobugath alone the voice gives an extended reason: the city was “inhabited by the people of king Jacob,” and its wickedness “was above all the wickedness of the whole earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land” (9:9). King Jacob and his band belong to the secret combinations arc that closes the pre-visitation narrative.

A note on the names. Five of these cities bear names also carried by persons in the record and must not be read as those persons: Moroni, Moronihah, Laman, Kishkumen, and Jacob here are place names in the catastrophe list — not Captain Moroni, his son Moronihah, Laman the brother of Nephi, Kishkumen the assassin, or Jacob (whether the patriarch, Nephi’s brother, or king Jacob as a person). The text names them here only as cities. And Jerusalem in this list is the Nephite-country city of that name: Alma 21 records that “the Lamanites and the Amalekites and the people of Amulon had built a great city, which was called Jerusalem” (Alma 21:2), named “after the land of their fathers’ nativity” (Alma 21:1) — not Jerusalem of Judah, Lehi’s starting point mapped at the top of this page.

Bountiful in the New World — the land of the temple (3 Nephi 11)

The record names a second Bountiful, distinct from the Old World land of 1 Nephi 17. When the darkness lifts, the survivors gather “round about the temple which was in the land Bountiful” (3 Nephi 11:1), and it is there that the risen Christ descends among them. This New World “land Bountiful” is the setting of the whole visitation (chapters 11–28); the wiki treats that narrative on its own page — see the visitation at Bountiful.

Name collision (a textual fact). This is not the Old World Bountiful mapped above on this page (the section on Bountiful and the sea Irreantum, the fertile coast where Nephi built the ship, 1 Nephi 17:5–6). The two lands share only a name; the text draws no connection between them, and the wiki keeps them as separate places, offering no real-world identification of either.

The cities rebuilt and the cities lost (4 Nephi 1:7–9)

After the visitation, as the converted nation prospers, the record returns to the ruined cities of the great destruction and sorts them by whether they could be raised again. Cities that had burned were rebuilt: “they did build cities again where there had been cities burned” (4 Nephi 1:7), and “even that great city Zarahemla did they cause to be built again” (4 Nephi 1:8). But the cities that had sunk could not be, because water now stood where they had been: “there were many cities which had been sunk, and waters came up in the stead thereof; therefore these cities could not be renewed” (4 Nephi 1:9). The sorting logic is the text’s own — burned ground can be built over; drowned ground cannot.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. 4 Nephi 1:9 reuses the destruction voice’s own wording for the water-covered cities of 3 Nephi 9:7:

• 4 Nephi 1:9: “…there were many cities which had been sunk, and waters came up in the stead thereof; therefore these cities could not be renewed.”
• 3 Nephi 9:7: “…and waters have I caused to come up in the stead thereof, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face…” The shared clause “waters … up in the stead thereof” is distinctive: the phrase “in the stead thereof” appears elsewhere in the record only in the olive-tree allegory of Jacob 5 (always of grafting or planting) and, at Ether 14:16 (a battle-succession) — never of water. Reported as a textual fact. 4 Nephi does not re-list which cities stayed drowned; it looks back to the sunk cities of the destroyed-cities list above — the water-covered Onihah, Mocum, and the Nephite-country Jerusalem of 3 Nephi 9:7, and the sea-sunk city Moroni of 3 Nephi 8:9 (repeated 9:4).

Cumorah — the land and the hill (Mormon 6; 8:2)

The last gathering-place of the Nephites is named both as a land and as a hill within it. Mormon writes to the Lamanite king asking “that we might gather together our people unto the land of Cumorah, by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we could give them battle” (Mormon 6:2). The army marches there and encamps: “we did march forth to the land of Cumorah, and we did pitch our tents around about the hill Cumorah; and it was in a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains” (6:4). The whole remnant gathers “unto the land of Cumorah” in the three hundred and eighty and fourth year (6:5). Before the final battle Mormon hides the sacred records in the hill: he “hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni” (6:6). After the slaughter, the survivors look out “from the top of the hill Cumorah” upon the ten thousands of the fallen (6:11). Moroni later names it once more: “the great and tremendous battle at Cumorah” (Mormon 8:2).

The text’s only physical detail of the setting is its own phrase — “a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains” (6:4). Whether the land or hill Cumorah corresponds to any real, identifiable location is an external, real-world question outside this wiki’s scope; the wiki records only what the text says of its own world. The same hill carries an older name in the Jaredite record — Ramah — and the identity of the two is treated under Jaredite geography below.

⚖️ Interpretation — weigh this. The record twice locates a nation’s death-field by a many-waters description. Mormon sites the last battlefield “in a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains” (Mormon 6:4); generations earlier the Limhi expedition, lost in the wilderness, “traveled in a land among many waters” and found “a land which was covered with bones of men… and was also covered with ruins of buildings of every kind” (Mosiah 8:8) — an earlier people’s destruction-ground. Two cautions keep this a weigh-it link: “many waters” is common (eleven corpus verses, from the vision’s seas to Irreantum to the Jaredite crossing), and the record’s own geography ties the Mosiah 8:8 bones-land to the land Desolation, not to Cumorah by name — “the land which they called Desolation… of whose bones we have spoken” (Alma 22:30, registered at ). Whether the land of Cumorah and that bones-land are one region, the text never states; the convergence of description is offered for the reader to weigh.

Jaredite geography — the land of the book of Ether

The book of Ether maps a second, older civilization onto the same land: Moroni’s abridgment of the Jaredite record names its own set of valleys, plains, waters, and hills, from the valley where the nation first gathered to the hill where it destroyed itself. As with the Nephite geography above, the wiki records only what the text says of its own world and offers no real-world identification. Several places Moroni fixes by a Nephite gloss — naming Jaredite ground with the Nephite terms his readers would know; those glosses are marked below.

The hill Ramah — the Nephites’ Cumorah. The Jaredite nation ends where the Nephite nation will end. Fleeing the last campaign, “the army of Coriantumr did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah” (Ether 15:11), and Moroni, who abridged both records, identifies the hill outright:

[Textual] — shared phrasing. One hill, two names, two national extinctions — the strongest single geographic identity the record makes:

• Ether 15:11 (of the Jaredites): “the army of Coriantumr did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah; and it was that same hill where my father Mormon did hide up the records unto the Lord, which were sacred.”
• Mormon 6:6 (of the Nephites): “…and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.”

The Jaredite name is Ramah; the Nephite name is Cumorah; the text sets them as one hill by Mormon’s own act of hiding the records there. “Ramah” as the hill’s name occurs only at Ether 15:11 in the record; “Cumorah” is confined to the book of Mormon — six verses (Mormon 6:2, 6:4, 6:5, 6:6, 6:11, 8:2), treated in the Cumorah section above. Whether the extinction of the one nation is structured as the type of the other’s is weighed on Jaredites (); the hill’s real-world location is, as with Cumorah, outside this wiki’s scope.

Then the rest of the map, in the order the record gives it:

• The valley of Nimrod (Ether 2:1) — the northward valley where the nation gathered its flocks before the crossing: “the name of the valley was Nimrod, being called after the mighty hunter” (the record’s own gloss). This valley is distinct from Nimrod son of Cohor, a Jaredite man (7:22); the name-collisions are gathered on Jaredites.
• Moriancumer (Ether 2:13) — the seashore where the company dwelt “for the space of four years” before building the barges: “they called the name of the place Moriancumer”.
• The mount Shelem (Ether 3:1) — the mountain the brother of Jared climbed to present the sixteen stones, “which they called the mount Shelem, because of its exceeding height” (the record’s own gloss).
• The land of Moron (Ether 7:5) — the seat of the kingdom, “where the king dwelt,” which 7:6 locates by a Nephite gloss: “was near the land which is called Desolation by the Nephites.” The land Moron is not the king Moron — a distinct referent, in the genealogy at 1:7 and reigning at 11:14; the two are kept apart on Jaredites.
• Ablom (Ether 9:3) — the place “by the seashore” where Omer settled after fleeing Akish’s conspiracy. The same verse carries two further Nephite glosses of Jaredite ground: Omer “passed by the hill of Shim” (the records-deposit hill treated in the hill Shim section below) “and came over by the place where the Nephites were destroyed” — Moroni’s editorial gloss, the same ground later called Ramah / Cumorah, not a record of a second, earlier destruction there.
• The waters of Ripliancum (Ether 15:8) — the great water Coriantumr reached in the last campaign, “which, by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all” (the record’s own gloss).
• The battle-grounds of the final war — the war between Coriantumr and his challengers ranges across named terrain: the valley of Gilgal (Ether 13:27), the plains of Heshlon (13:28), the plains of Agosh (14:15–16), and finally the valley of Corihor and the valley of Shurr, the latter “near the hill Comnor” where Coriantumr gathered his armies (Ether 14:28). The Jaredite valley of Gilgal is not the Nephite city Gilgal (3 Nephi 9:6) or the captain Gilgal who fell at Cumorah (Mormon 6:14) — both noted below; the record reuses the name for a Jaredite place.

The bone-strewn land. The Jaredite record describes what its extinction left on the land, and one of those descriptions meets the Nephite record at a single verse:

[Textual] — shared phrasing. Ether’s prophets foretold the land’s coming state; Limhi’s lost expedition, generations later, stumbled onto it:

• Ether 11:6 (the prophets, of the coming destruction): “…there should be a great destruction among them… and their bones should become as heaps of earth upon the face of the land except they should repent of their wickedness.”
• Mosiah 8:8 (Limhi’s expedition): “having discovered a land which was covered with bones of men, and of beasts, and was also covered with ruins of buildings of every kind…”

The land Limhi’s men found is the physical evidence that occasioned the recovery of the twenty-four plates (Mosiah 8:9) — Moroni’s very source. The close-range aftermath (“none left to bury the dead,” Ether 14:22) pairs with Omni 1:22’s “their bones lay scattered in the land northward” on Jaredites (); the Nephites’ own name for that bone-land, Desolation, is registered at (Alma 22:30 ↔ Mosiah 8:8); and its convergence with the Cumorah battlefield’s “many waters” is weighed at above.

The hill Shim and the land Antum (Mormon 1:3; 4:23)

An earlier records-deposit, distinct from Cumorah. Ammaron instructs the boy Mormon: “go to the land Antum, unto a hill which shall be called Shim; and there have I deposited unto the Lord all the sacred engravings concerning this people” (Mormon 1:3). Years later, “seeing that the Lamanites were about to overthrow the land,” Mormon “did go to the hill Shim, and did take up all the records which Ammaron had hid up unto the Lord” (Mormon 4:23) — the retrieval that lets him carry the record on to Cumorah. The land Antum is named only at Mormon 1:3; the hill Shim at Mormon 1:3, 4:23, and — in the book of Ether — Ether 9:3, where the fleeing Jaredite king Omer “passed by the hill of Shim, and came over by the place where the Nephites were destroyed” (Moroni glossing Jaredite geography in Nephite terms). (The hill Shim is a different place from the land and city Shem of Mormon 2:20–21 below, and from the man Shem who fell as a captain at Cumorah, Mormon 6:14 — three referents that share only a similar sound.)

The lands and cities of Mormon’s war (Mormon 2–5)

As the Nephites are driven back and forth in Mormon’s generation, the record names a sequence of battle-sites. For most it gives only a direction of retreat, a position relative to the sea or to another named place, and what happened there.

A note on reused names. Several of these war-era names recur elsewhere in the record and are kept distinct. The city Teancum (Mormon 4:3) is a place “in the borders by the seashore,” named without any stated reason — it is not the man Teancum, the Nephite captain of Alma 51–62; the text does not say the city was named for him, and the wiki asserts no link beyond the shared name. The city of Jordan (Mormon 5:3) is a Nephite city, distinct from the Old World river Jordan of Lehi’s homeland (1 Nephi 10:9; 17:32). The land and city Shem (Mormon 2:20–21) is a place, distinct from the hill Shim above and from the captain Shem who fell at Cumorah (Mormon 6:14). And the captains who fell at Cumorah bearing the names Gilgal and Josh (Mormon 6:14) are persons — treated among the record’s cited and minor figures — not the destroyed cities Gilgal (3 Nephi 9:6) and Josh (3 Nephi 9:10) of the list above. The record reuses each of these names for both a place and a person, and the wiki keeps them separate.

The places of Mormon’s last epistle (Moroni 9)

The book of Moroni preserves a war-letter from Mormon to his son (Moroni 9; the epistle itself is treated on Mormon), and it fixes two places in the theater of the final Nephite war. The wiki records only what the text locates at each, in the text’s own words.

The tower of Sherrizah. Named three times in the epistle (verified by search), always as a site of the war’s suffering. Prisoners “they took from the tower of Sherrizah” (Moroni 9:7); afterward “there are many widows and their daughters who remain in Sherrizah”, their remaining provisions “carried away” and they “left … to wander whithersoever they can for food” (9:16); and the place fixes a military line — “the armies of the Lamanites are betwixt Sherrizah and me” (9:17). The text gives Sherrizah no region, direction, or relation to any other named place beyond this — only that the Lamanite armies stand between it and Mormon.

Moriantum. Named once (Moroni 9:9), as the place of “our people”: “it doth not exceed that of our people in Moriantum. For behold, many of the daughters of the Lamanites have they taken prisoners”. The text locates the captives there and says nothing further of the place itself — no position, no founding, no gloss.

Disambiguation (three near-namesakes). Moriantum the place (Moroni 9:9) must not be read as any of the three it stands a syllable from. It is not Moriancumer, the Jaredite seashore where the brother of Jared dwelt four years before the barges (Ether 2:13) — mapped under Jaredite geography above. It is not Morianton the Jaredite king, a descendant of Riplakish who “did establish himself king over all the land” (Ether 10:9). And it is not Morianton the Nephite dissenter, nor the land of Morianton he led against Moroni in a border war (Alma 50:25–35) — both cataloged among the record’s cited and minor figures. Four distinct referents share the same opening; the text joins none of them, and neither does this page.

Every place name and geographic detail on this page is drawn from the cited verses in the text. The text’s own glosses — Irreantum = “many waters”; Bountiful named “because of its much fruit”; and, in the Jaredite record, the mount Shelem named “because of its exceeding height,” the valley of Nimrod “called after the mighty hunter”, and the waters of Ripliancum “which, by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all” — are quoted verbatim. The Ramah = Cumorah identity and the Jaredite bone-land are registered connections (, ). The two places of Mormon’s last epistle (the tower of Sherrizah and Moriantum, Moroni 9) carry no gloss and no registered connection; Moriantum is kept distinct from Moriancumer and the two Moriantons. No real-world geographic identification is offered or implied.