The name of the ancient country whose inhabitants were called Assyrians. It lay in the upper Mesopotamian plain, bounded on the west by the Syrian desert, on the south by the Jebel Hamrin and Babylonia, and on the north and east by the Urartian (Armenian) and Persian hills. The most fertile and densely populated part of Assyria lay east of the central river Tigris.
Assyria, which is always carefully distinguished from Babylonia, stands for the world power whose invasions of Israel and Judah were divinely permitted, though later it too suffered destruction for its godlessness. There are frequent references to the land (Isaiah 7:18; Hosea 11:5) and to the kings of Assyria (Isaiah 8:4; 2 Kings 15-19). [Tyndale House, The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Vol. 1, pp. 135-144] [See 2 Nephi 21:11]
2 Nephi 17:18 Assyria ([Illustration]): Assyria and surrounding regions. [Tyndale House, The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Vol. 1, p. 142]