The land of Joshua lay in the borders west by the seashore (Mormon 2:6). Mormon, leading the Nephite armies, marched there after the Lamanites drove his people out of the city of Angola and the land of David, and at Joshua he gathered the people together into one body (Mormon 2:4-7). The surrounding land was filled with robbers and Lamanites (Mormon 2:8). It was from this position, around AD 330, that Mormon withstood the Lamanite king Aaron and his army of 44,000 with 42,000 men and beat him, the first such victory recorded under Mormon’s command (Mormon 2:9).
Joshua sat at the northerly end of a coastal wilderness running from the land of first inheritance toward the narrow neck of land. This western coastal region, wilderness and forested lowlands backed by a mountain range, had no recorded Nephite settlements until the late retreat of the Nephites brought them there.