Is the Heartland City of Nephi near Chattanooga, Tennessee?

To understand the Heartland Theory of the location of the Land of Promise is to recognize what is behind the claims of the land layout, and what that land looks like in comparison to the scriptural record descriptions left us by Mormon.
    Obviously, Mormon wanted us to know the layout of the various lands mentioned in the scriptural record, since he inserted a 568-word statement covering 8 verses of land description (Alma 22:27-34). Now, while this insert by Mormon is nowhere near as important as the doctrinal information in the Book of Mormon, he certainly must have felt it was of some importance to insert this descriptive material into his abridgement for our edification and knowledge.
    Considering his purpose, let us then look at the claims of the Heartland location of the city and land of Nephi.
    As listed on one Heartland website, the story of Lehi landing begins in Florida, then moves to the city of Nephi around Chattanooga in Tennessee, where Nephi settled after fleeing from his older brothers. From there Mosiah traveled to Missouri and up to Iowa, where he discovered Zarahemla, along the west bank of the Mississippi River, which is claimed to be the Sidon River. Captain Moroni is later found in Illinois and Indiana, and the Savior’s visit to the Nephites took place in Ohio, with the Nephites final battles of Mormon and Moroni near the Hill Cumorah in western New York.
    To begin our detailed examination of the lands, we start in the area of the Heartland city of Nephi in Tennessee, where Nephi taught his people “to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance” (2 Nephi 5:15), and built a temple constructed after the manner of the temple of Solomon…and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine” (2 Nephi 5:16).

The Chickamauga Mound along Amnicola Highway, believed to be a burial site of Native American Indians from the Woodland period about 2,000 years ago, and what Tom Kunesh, a Chattanoogan and member of the Advisory Council on Tennessee Indian Affairs, calls "the oldest thing in Chattanooga that humans made"

First of all, with such exceedingly fine buildings and a temple like Solomon’s, one might expect to find numerous ruins and other evidence of ancient occupation in the area; however, the only ancient edifice is a very small hillock or mound called the Chickamauga Mound, a Native American Indian burial mound, “the oldest human-made structure in Chattanooga” (now part of the Woodland Mound Archeological District).
    This entire area lies at the transition between valleys and ridges of the lower Appalachian Mountains, and to the West along the Allegheny and Cumberland Plateaus on dissected (severely eroded by creeks and rivers) lands lying at the western edge of the plateau with the Appalachian Mountains to the east on the other side of the plateau.
    The most prominent natural features in and around this area is the Tennessee River, which runs through the city, flowing toward the southwest. The city is nestled between the southwestern ridge-and-valley portion of the Appalachian Mountains and the foot of Walden’s Ridge, the latter separated from the western side of downtown by the river. Several miles east, the city is bisected by Missionary Ridge, and further east, a ridge of mountains.
    At one time, this entire area was a level plain before the streams and rivers cut into the ground, forming the dissected plateau that varies about four hundred feet in elevation, the highest points being 1,100 feet above sea level. The terrain falls away to the south in a sharply pronounced escarpment, creating a central basin. The city itself lies at 680 feet elevation, and with the exception of a few broad stream bottoms, the land is characterized by ridges and valleys with a few fairly low hills. The entire region is well watered with many perennial streams. There are occasional waterfalls which sometimes delineate the Highland Rim from the Central Basin which it surrounds.

To the east about fifty miles away the Eastern Rim rises and is bordered to its east by even higher terrain of the Cumberland Plateau. To the West are the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River valleys, with numerous sinkholes occurring in the southern extension of the Pennyroyal plateau of Kentucky where the karst is best developed. The stratigraphy of the Southern Highland Rim is primarily composed of flat-lying limestones, dolomites, and shales, and to a much lesser extent, of cherts, siltstones, mudstones, and a very fine grained to conglomeratic sandstones.
    None of this, of course, denotes a mountainous region, let alone correctly places this location as the City of Nephi at an elevated area consistent with Mormon’s descriptions of the city of Nephi in the scriptural record.
    This plateau contains some of the largest stretches of contiguous forest in the eastern United States. Regionally, forests are intermediate between oak and hickory with pine occurring on dry, upland sites and mesophytic (low growing) species occurring in protected coves.
    To the east of the plateaus, are the low-lying Cumberland Mountains, with High Knob the highest point at 4,223 feet (with the local elevation at 1,000 feet, the mountains are visually only 3,223 feet high). However, to the west, toward Nauvoo (and Zarahemla, Iowa), the terrain is a low-lying plain all the way to the Mississippi River and beyond, including northern Missouri and all of Iowa.
    Now with the location of the Heartland City of Nephi, let us take a look at Mormon’s description of this land.
    When “the king sent a proclamation throughout all the land, amongst all his people who were in all his land, who were in all the regions round about, which was bordering even to the sea, on the east and on the west, and which was divided from the land of Zarahemla by a narrow strip of wilderness, which ran from the sea east even to the sea west, and round about on the borders of the seashore, and the borders of the wilderness which was on the north by the land of Zarahemla…and thus were the Lamanites and the Nephites divided” (Alma 22:27).
    Thus, we find that:
1. The Land of Nephi ran from the East Sea to the West Sea;
2.The narrow strip of wilderness ran from the East Sea to the West Sea;
3. The Land of Zarahemla was on the north of the narrow strip of wilderness;
4. The Land of Nephi was on the south of the narrow strip of wilderness,
    Now it should be noted that none of these four descriptions required by Mormon are met by the City of Nephi in the Heartland model.
    The Heartland Land of Nephi:
1. Does not run from the East Sea to the West Sea;
2. Does not have a narrow strip of wilderness along its north border, but instead has a river;
3. Does not have the Land of Zarahemla on the north, but instead has the Land of Bountiful;
4. Does not run along the south of a narrow strip of wilderness

Yet another Heartland Map full of errors: (Red Arrow) Land of Nephi borders the Land of Bountiful; (Green Arrow) Land of Zarahemla north and west of Land of Bountiful; (Yellow Circle) There is no strip of wilderness here—it is a flat plain along a plateau; (Maroon Circle) City of Nephi to the north of the Narrow Strip of Wilderness, and northeast of the Land of Bountiful; (White Circle) Hill Cumorah south of the Land of Desolation and east of the narrow neck of land; (Blue Circle) Hagoth launched his ships in the West Sea and they sailed northward—not possible on either count from this point; (Blue Square) Land of First Inheritance bordered on the West Sea

The object of a map is not to just get one that is the location you want and then start placing names any willy-nilly way just to get all the words on the map. Any map has to match reality and also match the descriptions given us in the scriptural record. Such maps as this one above is absolutely useless and shows the map maker had no idea what he was doing or where these locations were in relation to one another as Mormon described.