Teancum was a Nephite city by the seashore, near the city of Desolation, named in the wars that preceded the Nephite collapse around A.D. 400. After the Lamanites took Desolation in the 363rd year, the surviving Nephites fled and joined the inhabitants of Teancum (Mormon 4:3). In the 364th year the Lamanites came against Teancum to take it, but were repulsed and driven back by the Nephites, who then retook Desolation (Mormon 4:3, 6-8). In A.D. 367 the Lamanites marched on the city again, drove out its inhabitants, and took many prisoners; they offered up the captives, including women and children, as sacrifices to their idol gods (Mormon 4:14).
Teancum lay one city from Desolation, which stood in the borders by the narrow pass leading into the land southward (Mormon 3:5–6; 4:2-3). The record does not state on which seaboard Teancum sat, but its position relative to Desolation and the narrow pass places it on the eastern coast of the land southward.