Alma 22:27 states the following:
and which [Lamanite land] was DIVIDED from the land of Zarahemla by a narrow strip of wilderness, which [narrow strip of wilderness]:
ran from the sea east even to the sea west, and
[ran] round about on the borders of the seashore and the borders of the wilderness
which [narrow strip of wilderness] was on the north [of the land of Nephi] by the land of Zarahemla,
through the borders of Manti by the head of the river Sidon,
running from the east towards the west,
and thus were the Lamanites and the Nephites DIVIDED.
For a moment here, we might consider what our modern culture has done to our perspective of viewing geographical information. Most all of our geographical maps tend to view things from above, or from an aerial view. It seems that when we read the phrase "narrow strip" we automatically switch to an aerial perspective of the Book of Mormon lands and define the word "narrow" in terms of distance across. Mormon never had an airplane and he never viewed anything from anywhere except ground level, even if that ground might have been at the tops of mountains. Thus he might have had a different perspective. It is interesting to note that a "narrow strip" of wilderness is not mentioned until after the Nephites have moved to the land of Zarahemla. It is also worthy of note that after mentioning the phrase "narrow strip" here in Alma 22:27, Mormon apparently never uses it again. Taking a look at travels through this same area, we find that it took Ammon forty days of wandering in the wilderness to find his way from the land of Zarahemla to the land of Lehi-Nephi (see Mosiah 7:5). It also took the sons of Mosiah "many days" of journeying just to reach the "borders of the Lamanites" from the land of Zarahemla (see Alma 17:9,13). We might ask ourselves then, What does "narrow strip" mean? If we assume a Mesoamerican setting, one observation is that the area between and including Guatemala city (the proposed local land of Nephi) and the Chiapas Depression of Mexico (the proposed land of Zarahemla) is made up of multiple mountain ranges. After descending down from the mountains of Guatemala into the Chiapas Depression, as one looks back around in the general direction of where he has just come from (the general land of Nephi), one can see in a most striking manner a strip of mountains (a narrow strip of wilderness) against the horizon that borders the depression apparently "from the sea east even to the sea west" or at least as far as the eye can see. This strip of mountains represents to the viewer a very visual demarcation line between one land and another. [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes] [See Geographical Theory Maps]
Alma 22:27 A narrow strip of wilderness ([Illustration]): A Perspective on the Narrow Strip of Wilderness. [Clate Mask, "New Insights into an Old Problem: The Land of Bountiful," p. 2, unpublished]