Large Bodies of Water

Alma 50:29 talks about a land which was northward covered with large bodies of water. Helaman 3:4 describes migrations from the land of Zarahemla to an exceeding great distance into the land northward which had large bodies of water. A large body of water probably refers to an inland lake. Many have suggested Teotihuacan adjacent to the very large ancient Lake Texcoco is a good candidate for the area being described in Alma 50 and Helaman 3.

I was at Cholula a few years ago and was interested to learn that it, like Teotihuacan, was built aside a large ancient lake. There is no lake near the ruins of Cholula today. It is a heavily-populated part of the state of Puebla and the local water table has been dramatically drawn down over the years through stream diversion and pumping. Ditto Lake Texcoco, The modest floating gardens of Xochimilco on the extreme south of sprawling Mexico City are all that is left of what once was a very large lake. Actually, Texcoco was five adjoining lakes: Chalco, Xochimilco, Texcoco, Xaltocan, and Zumpango, with a combined surface area of about 1,400 square kilometers. That is more than 3 times the size of Utah Lake which has a surface area of about 380  square kilometers.

On June 29, 2019, I spent time with Mexican historian Diego Velazquez near his home in Lerma east of Toluca. I asked about Lake Lerma south of the city. He said anciently it was considerably larger, covering much of the Toluca Valley, with settlement sites around the shores. Its ancient name was "Chignahuapan" which means "place of nine lakes." There were also shallow lakes called Chimaliapan and Chicnahuapan. So, Mexico City, Toluca over the mountains to the west, and Cholula over the mountains to the east, were all once part of a land northward with large bodies of water.

Further research has shown that Tlaxcala, too, once had sizable lakes along the upper course of the Zahuapan River. Cantona, a site closely affiliated with Teotihuacan, had two ancient lakes nearby, Tepeyahualco and Totoncingo. Lake Zacapu, 50 kilometers NW of Morelia, Michoacan, is now dry but once covered 350 square kilometers. Remnants remain of what was once a band of lakes through Central Mexico from Lake Chapala, the largest inland lake in Mexico today at 1,100 square kilometers, to lovely Lake Catemaco in the Tuxtla Mountains of Veracruz (72 square kilometers).

Region in Central Mexico that Anciently had Many Large Lakes

This region, through central Jalisco, northern Michoacan, southern Guanajuato, the state of Mexico, Mexico City, southern Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, central Puebla and south central Veracruz could reasonably have been described anciently by Book of Mormon peoples as a land far northward with large bodies of water.

Relative surface areas:

Lake Texcoco, Mexico 1,400 square km

Lake Chapala, Jalisco 1,100 square km

Utah Lake, Utah (largest freshwater lake in the US west of the Mississippi) 380 square km

Lake Zacuapa, Michoacan 350 square km

Bear Lake, Idaho & Utah 280 square km

Lake Chignahuapan, Mexico 250 square km

Lake Catemaco, Veracruz 72 square km 

This band of ancient lakes roughly corresponds to the area Mexican geographers call the "Cinturón Volcánico Transmexicano" or CVT. In English it is the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt formed by plate tectonics. The more than 20 volcanoes in this belt include Pico de Orizaba (5,636 meters), which is the highest volcanic peak in North America. Popocatépetl (5,393 meters) is the second highest peak in Mexico and Iztaccíhatl (5,230 meters) is the third highest in the country. Moisture-laden clouds rising up the slopes of the 20+ volcanoes in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt result in the abundant rainfall that fed the ancient rivers and lakes in this fertile region. Many of these volcanoes are snow-capped during the winter months.