We should begin with the clearest and fullest information in the Book of Mormon text, which comes from Alma 22:32. Mormon explained that “the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla,” a combined unit constituting almost the entire land southward, “were nearly surrounded by water.” This agrees with the statement in 2 Nephi 10:20: “We are upon an isle of the sea.” (In the King James Version of the Bible and generally in the Book of Mormon, an “isle” was not necessarily completely surrounded by water; it was simply a place to which routine access was by sea, even though a traveler might reach it by a land route as well.) There was “a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward” that “was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on the line [that marked the boundary between] Bountiful and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea.” The basic shape of the two lands and isthmus are seen on map 1.

MAP 1. OVERALL SHAPE

The fundamental geographical configuration of the “promised land” was like an hourglass, with the land southward "nearly surrounded by water” (Alma 22:32).

No specific information is provided about the shape or extent of the land northward, but we can conclude from its being paired with the land southward (as in Helaman 6:10) that it expanded from the narrow neck to be roughly comparable in scale to the land southward. (See the next chapter for more on the land northward.)

The directional trend of the two lands and the neck was generally north-south. The east sea (six references) and the west sea (twelve references) were the primary bodies of water that bounded this promised land. But notice that the key term of reference is not “land north” (only five references) but “land northward” (thirty-one references). There is, of course, a distinction; “land northward” implies a direction somewhat off from literal north. This implication that the lands are not simply oriented to the cardinal directions is confirmed by reference to the “sea north” and “sea south” (Helaman 3:8). These terms are used only once, in reference to the colonizing of the land northward by the Nephites, but not in connection with the land southward. The only way to have seas north and south on a literal or descriptive basis would be for the two major bodies of land to be oriented at an angle somewhat off true northsouth. That would allow part of the ocean to lie toward the south of one and another part of the ocean to lie toward north of the other.

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Summary

The Nephites, including Mormon, conceived of the lands of concern to them as centered in the isthmian zone that connected two larger territories, the land northward and the land southward. The land southward was “nearly surrounded” (Alma 22:32) by ocean waters, and the land northward was also bounded by oceans; the original immigrant parties arrived from the Old World across these waters. The Nephite writers did not see their land of promise as merely a segment within and surrounded by a continental land mass, and we shall establish later that the dimensions of their geographical picture were far smaller than those of any continent.

While all details of the configuration of lands cannot be settled definitively from the statements we have available, what is said fits together consistently if we consider the basic shape of the lands to be rather like an hourglass.