Mount Ararat is known as the region where Noah’s Ark came to rest after the global flood. Genesis 8:4 states:
“Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.”
The “mountains of Ararat” refer not to a single peak, but to a mountainous region that was part of ancient Urartu, located in what is now eastern Turkey, Armenia, and parts of Iran. While modern tradition often points to the highest peak in modern-day Turkey as the Ark’s landing place, the Bible does not identify a specific mountain. It simply refers to a mountainous region.
The modern identification of Mount Ararat in Turkey as the Ark’s resting place is traditional but not definitive. It likely developed over time, influenced more by later geography and tradition than direct biblical evidence. The actual location remains uncertain, and there is no archaeological confirmation of the Ark’s remains.
Biblically, the focus is not on pinpointing a mountain, but on what the event signified: God’s judgment, preservation of Noah and his family, and the beginning of a new chapter for mankind. After the flood, God made a covenant never again to destroy the earth with water (Genesis 9:11–13), sealing it with the rainbow.
Mount Ararat is also mentioned in 2 Kings 19:37 and Isaiah 37:38 as a place to which the sons of Sennacherib fled after assassinating him, and in Jeremiah 51:27 as part of a prophetic call to rise against Babylon.
In Scripture, the mountains of Ararat symbolize divine judgment and preservation, but the exact location of the Ark’s resting place remains unknown and is not essential to our faith or belief in this literal historical account.