The city of Bountiful was a Nephite city in the northeastern part of Nephite territory, named in the record chiefly for its role in the Amalickiahite war and the later Lamanite invasion. During the twenty-seventh year of the reign of the judges, Teancum based his army at Bountiful: after finding the Lamanite-held city of Mulek too strongly fortified to attack, he returned to Bountiful to wait for Moroni, who arrived there with his army and held a council of war with the chief captains (Alma 52:18-19). Teancum’s prisoners from the fighting were marched into the land of Bountiful and set to fortify it, digging a ditch around the city and building a breastwork of timbers with dirt cast up against it, encircling the city with a wall of timbers and earth (Alma 53:3-4).
In the war that followed Coriantumr’s capture of Zarahemla, he marched a large army toward the city of Bountiful, meaning to cut through to the north parts of the land; he was headed off and never reached it (Helaman 1:23). Bountiful was also where Nephi and Lehi began their preaching, going out to teach the word of God among the people of Nephi starting at the city of Bountiful (Helaman 5:14).
The city’s most prominent scriptural role is as the site of Christ’s post-resurrection appearance to the Nephites. A great multitude had gathered around the temple in the land Bountiful when the risen Christ descended and invited the people to come forth one by one and feel the prints of the nails in his hands and feet (3 Nephi 11:1, 14-15). At that same temple, Christ gave twelve disciples power to baptize (3 Nephi 11:21-22; 12:1), and he instituted the sacrament, blessing the bread and giving the cup of wine, commanding that the ordinance be observed in remembrance of his body and blood (3 Nephi 18:1-11). The city of Bountiful is thus both a military stronghold in the war records and the primary setting of Christ’s ministry to the Nephites.