After nearly a year on the water, the Jaredites landed “upon the shore of the promised land. And when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised land they bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them” (Ether 6:12).

If the eight Jaredite vessels reached the west coast of North America by way of the Pacific Ocean, as we suggest, where did they land? And which area did the Jaredites settle? There is no mention of the landing location in the record. Moroni at the beginning of the Book of Ether, however, provides helpful background answers to these two questions. He states that the Jaredites “were destroyed by the hand of the Lord upon the face of this north country” (Ether 1:1).

“This north country” in the Nephite geographical realm was the area directly north of the narrow neck of land, comprising the land of Desolation and the adjacent areas to the north (Alma 22:29-31; see our topic article, From the Sea West to the Sea East, and also, Mormon’s Description of Book of Mormon Lands, in our main article, An Approach to the Book of Mormon Geography). And the “this” in the phrase “this north country” was the area where Mormon and Moroni lived their lives, participated in the final battle between the Nephites and the Lamanites in the land of Cumorah, and where Moroni was then living when he wrote his record, and not some distant region in the far north. And “this north country” was the same area the descendants of Jared continuously occupied from the time of their landing in the promised land until their demise.

Moroni in his abridgment mentions that “the land of Moron, where the king dwelt, was near the land which is called Desolation by the Nephites” (Ether 7:6). The “king” at this time was Kib, the son of Orihah, and Orihah was the son of Jared and the only son among all the sons of Jared and his brother who would accept the kingship for the family (Ether 6:22-28). Thus Moroni places the most significant and central location of the Jaredite realm, the place where the king dwelt in the land of Moron, in this same “north country” near the land of Desolation, which after the annihilation of the descendants of Jared became a Nephite occupied land (Alma 63:4-10; Hel. 3:3-13). Moroni’s statement also places the Jaredite monarchy in the land of Moron within the first generation of their reaching the promised land.

Moroni indicates that the twenty-four gold plates, which were the source of his account in the Book of Ether, “were found by the people of Limhi” (Ether 1:2). In about 121 B.C. king Limhi secretly sent a “small number of men” northwards from the land of Nephi, “to search for the land of Zarahemla,” and to obtain help for freeing his people from bondage (Mosiah 21:22-32). The search party attempted to reach the land of Zarahemla, “but they could not find it, and they were lost in the wilderness” (Mosiah 21:25). The lost searchers continued northward—probably several-days journey, not thousands of miles—until they found numerous bones within the desolate land of the destroyed Jaredite civilization. The Jaredites most likely would have perished within some 100 years or so of the search party’s arrival, because bones and other evidence, such as breastplates and swords were still recognizable (Mosiah 8:10-11; 21:26). The lost group mistakenly assumed that the remains of the destroyed civilization were associated with the people of Zarahemla they were attempting to find—because they knew nothing about the Jaredite lands—and “returned to the land of Nephi” (Mosiah 21:26). During the expedition, king Limhi’s men discovered a “record of the people whose bones they had found” (Mosiah 21:27), on twenty-four gold plates which king Mosiah later translated and Moroni subsequently abridged into the Book of Ether, as the record of the same Jaredites they mistakenly assumed to be the people of Zarahemla. This account of king Limhi’s search party also places the Jaredites in northern Nephite lands, but not too far north of where they had expected to find the land of Zarahemla. (See journey of king Limhi’s search party in our topic article, The Narrow Strip of Wilderness—Spatial Features, Orientation and Recorded Journeys)

The proximity of the Jaredite lands to the lands of the people of Zarahemla (the Mulekites) and the Nephites led to fleeting intertwinings of their histories at several points in time (Omni 1:20-22; Mosiah 8:6:21; Mosiah 21:26-28; Alma 22:30; Alma 63:4-9; Ether 7:6; Ether 9:3, 31; Ether 15:11). However, there is only one recorded encounter of a Jaredite with other Book of Mormon people. Amaleki, a record keeper of the Book of Omni, states that in the “days of Mosiah [the first], there was a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it; and he did interpret the engravings by the gift and power of God. And they gave an account of one Coriantumr [a Jaredite], and the slain of his people. And Coriantumr was discovered by the people of Zarahemla [the Mulekites]; and he dwelt with them for the space of nine moons. It also spake a few words concerning his fathers. And his first parents came out from the tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people; and the severity of the Lord fell upon them according to his judgments, which are just; and their bones lay scattered in the land northward” (Omni 1:20-22; Alma 22:30). We assume the phrase “nine moons” implies nine lunar months, or about 265 days.

Thus the southern extent of the Jaredite lands (the land Desolation) adjoined the northern extent of the Nephite lands (the land of Bountiful) at the time of the annihilation of descendants of Jared and the destruction of their civilization at hill Ramah. Their demise happened sometime before 200 B.C., the approximate time the Nephites under Mosiah (the first) joined with the people of Zarahemla, and, of course, no later than the encounter of the people of Zarahemla with Coriantumr, the lone Jaredite survivor, at an unknown time after their arrival in the promised land about 590 B.C. And most significantly, the hill Ramah, in the land Desolation, is described by Moroni as the same hill as the hill Cumorah where the last battle of the Lamanites and Nephites took place in A.D. 385 (Ether 9:3; 15:11; Morm. 6).

Within our proposed locations for the Book of Mormon lands, these scriptural references place the Jaredite territory, as described by both Moroni and Mormon, in the northern one-third of the peninsula of Baja California and what is now the southern part of the state of California. This combined area, with a delightful Mediterranean climate and a prodigious agricultural carrying capacity, has a total population exceeding 23 million people today. We would suggest that the eight Jaredite vessels landed somewhere on the west coast of this extended area. (See our topic article, From the Sea West to the Sea East)

The people “went forth upon the face of the land, and began to till the earth” (Ether 6:13). Tilling the earth and planting seeds was also the first chore of Lehi’s family upon arriving in the land of promise (1 Ne. 18:24). Tilling the land implies that they prepared the soil for cultivation and the planting of seeds—seeds that they, like the Nephites, brought with them from their distant homeland (Ether 1:41; 2:3). In both accounts, there is no mention of a need to clear the land before tilling the earth and planting seeds, or to seek a higher elevation or an inland location.