The major lands of Nephi and Zarahemla were “nearly surrounded by water,” except for a small neck of land with a width equal to a day and a half journey for a Nephite. This neck of land was spanned by a fortified defense line from the sea west to the sea east. Within this peninsula-shaped configuration, the land of Bountiful extended from the sea west to the sea east and was settled by the Nephites. The concluding verse explains the Nephite strategy (wisdom) of hemming in the Lamanites on the south in the land of Nephi, and in the wilderness “round about,” thus preventing the Lamanites from overrunning the lands to the north. The goal of this strategy was to minimize conflicts with the Lamanites, and at the same time leave the Nephites a country to the north where “they could flee according to their desires.” These confinements and exit strategies could only be enacted on a peninsula.

Mormon wrote these 20 geographical descriptions as part of his abridgment in about A.D. 385, some 460 years after the missionary event he is recording. It is interesting to note that Mormon makes no mention of any changes to the configuration of the lands in the intervening years, such as the wide-scale destruction which took place at the time of the Savior's crucifixion, when “. . . the whole face of the land was changed . . .” (3 Nephi 8:12). It would appear that these changes to the surface of the land did not adversely affect the shape and locations of the larger land configurations mentioned in Mormon’s description, and that the geographical descriptions were still accurate in his day.