The Book of Mormon story happened somewhere. It had to have a location. But where? It is our assertion that the heartlands of the Book of Mormon peoples—the Nephites, the Lamanites, the Jaredites and the people of Mulek—were located in what is now the peninsula of Baja California.

We propose that the land of Nephi was located in the southern half of Baja California; that the land of Zarahemla and the land of Bountiful (with a small neck of land on its northern border) were in the center of the peninsula; and that the land of Desolation, occupied by both the Nephites and the Jaredites, covered the northern half of Baja California. The dimensions, scope, variety and land area of these combined regions are more than ample as a setting for events, locations and distances described in the Book of Mormon.

A typical response to Baja California might well be: “What!” or, “Isn’t Baja California just a long sand bar south of San Diego?” Actually, Baja California is an 800 mile-long peninsula, with a delightful climate similar to California and the State of Israel. The area is nearly the size of Utah and five times the size of Israel. It is a land with a blessed physical environment of unusual variety and exciting vistas, and areas where the land narrows to some 40 miles. This striking region, isolated by the barrier of an international border, comprises two states of Mexico with a combined population exceeding that of the State of Utah, and when combined with southern California, the population totals some 23 million. And there is a good chance that the fruit and vegetables you had for lunch today were picked only days ago in Baja California.

We know the Book of Mormon to be a true and correct account of the Nephite and Jaredite cultures and civilizations. We also believe that the most important contribution of the Book of Mormon is not it’s geography or its cultural and historical details, but its clear and masterful contributions to our understanding of gospel doctrines of salvation, correct principles of behavior, and the consequences of unrighteous choices.

Joseph Smith said concerning the Book of Mormon: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, . . .” We accept this statement of correctness in its most literal sense, and have focused our efforts on the numerous references in the text as accurate descriptions of geographical features. If the text describes a direction as east, we should accept the direction as being correct and not try to justify a more convenient orientation, such as south, to fit a proposed geographical location. If the text says swords were made of steel, we should accept it means steel and not claim the swords were made from an alternative substance, such as obsidian, when the raw materials for making steel are not available within a desired region of the world.

The scriptures are our only official source of information on the geography of the Book of Mormon. There are no other sources beyond the Book of Mormon text, unless it is an official pronouncement of the Church. We have had to conscientiously avoid imposing any mental maps and mental images of the Book of Mormon lands as templates for its geography, or even the images portrayed in artist’s paintings of Book of Mormon scenes, often with lakes depicting the waters of Mormon, surrounded with magnificent stone buildings and jungle foliage filled with monkeys and parrots. These images are misleading, especially when there are no lakes, jungles, monkeys, parrots or stone buildings mentioned in the Book of Mormon geography. Our approach also starts with the premise that we should first focus on the geography and then move towards contributions from other disciplines. The reverse of this approach is the proverbial “forcing a square peg into a round hole.” If a proposed location for the Book of Mormon lands is not correct, not only does the detailed information not fit well, but the truth is often splintered in the process.

Even though we have spent our careers as a university professor of human and physical geography, a computer engineer with pioneering work on the Internet, and as computer specialists for two major projects on the text of the Book of Mormon, we never gave much concern or thought to the geography of the Nephite and Jaredite lands. From time to time, however, we read the work of others attempting to unravel the challenges faced with locating Book of Mormon lands. We held the view that many of the conclusions in these studies did not accurately reflect the numerous geographical details contained within the Book of Mormon text, especially the scale, relative location, and physical environment of Book of Mormon places. This was of little concern to us, however, because our focus was on the more important spiritual and doctrinal contributions of the book. Locating Book of Mormon places was not a high priority.

However, with the recent introduction of new, computer-based research tools—the unbelievable potential and power of the images of the earth’s surface in the Google Earth™ Internet application and the unfathomable depth of information provided from millions of Internet sites indexed by Google Search™, the comprehensive search ability of the Internet version of the scriptures, and our studies of the Book of Mormon scriptures—we decided to experiment with these tools, using our geographical knowledge and experience with the earth’s surface, to see if it were possible to throw new light on the questions: Where were the Book of Mormon lands? And were these lands located in Baja California?