Jaredite Geography

We don’t know a lot about the geography of the lands of the Jaredites, but we can piece together a few things from various passages in the Book of Mormon.  Perhaps the clearest fact is that the Jaredites lived in the land northward, whereas the Nephites were generally in the land southward.  Mormon explained “And [the land Bountiful] bordered upon the land which they called Desolation, it being so far northward that it came into the land which had been peopled and been destroyed, of whose bones we have spoken, which was discovered by the people of Zarahemla, it being the place of their first landing” (Alma 22:30).  Desolation was a Nephite city just north of the narrow neck of land (and thus in the land northward), and Moroni mentioned in the beginning of their history that “the land of Moron, where the king dwelt, was near the land which is called Desolation by the Nephites” (Ether 7:6).  At a later point in the Jaredite history Moroni wrote, “And it came to pass that their flocks began to flee before the poisonous serpents, towards the land southward, which was called by the Nephites Zarahemla” (Ether 9:31).  Eventually they would go into the land southward to hunt, but the Jaredites resided in the land northward: “Wherefore they did go into the land southward, to hunt food for the people of the land, for the land was covered with animals of the forest….  And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land.  And they did preserve the land southward for a wilderness, to get game” (Ether 10:19-21).  Amaleki, who first mentioned the Jaredites and Coriantumr’s contact with the people of Zarahemla, wrote that after the Jaredites’ destruction “their bones lay scattered in the land northward” (Omni 1:22).  Clearly the events of Jaredite civilization took place in the land northward, and they were not far from the places of the Nephites. 

               One of the most interesting facts about Jaredite geography was the way in which their destruction coincided with that of the Nephites.  In the account of the final battles among the Jaredites we read, “And it came to pass that 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.” This is where “they did gather together all the people upon all the face of the land” until the fought to the death and Coriantumr (Ether 15:11-12).  That “same hill” was none other than the Hill Cumorah as evidenced in Mormon’s words: “And it came to pass that when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah, behold I, Mormon, began to be old… therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord” (Mormon 6:6).  So the place where the Nephites were destroyed was the same as where the Jaredites were destroyed, “a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains” (Mormon 6:4).  Much more important than the geography, of course, is the message to us that if we are to live in this same promised land then we must “serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come” just as these two groups (Ether 2:9).