Location from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
A temperate forest arena surrounding a golden lake — engineered as a killing ground where Gamemakers deploy fire, tracker jacker nests, and muttation wolves to herd twenty-four children toward each other.
The 74th arena was designed to look almost natural — a forest that might exist anywhere in old North America. That's the cruelty: it feels survivable, which draws tributes into the open. The Cornucopia bloodbath claimed nearly half the field in the first minutes. Katniss fled to the forest, climbed trees, found water. The Gamemakers controlled everything: when rain fell, when fires erupted to drive tributes together, when the rules changed to allow two victors from the same district — and then changed back. The tracker jacker nest Katniss dropped on the Career camp was the arena's own weapon turned against its intended purpose. The final muttation wolves — engineered with the dead tributes' eyes — were designed to break the survivors psychologically before the kill. When Katniss and Peeta held out the nightlock berries, threatening mutual suicide rather than giving the Capitol its single victor, the arena's purpose shattered. The Games were supposed to prove the Capitol's power. Instead they proved it could be defied.
Dense deciduous and pine forest surrounding a broad lake. The golden Cornucopia sits on an open plain at the lake's edge. Streams cut through rocky terrain. At night, the projected sky displays the faces of the dead. The forest canopy hides tracker jacker nests in the high branches.
Also known as: the arena, 74th arena, Katniss's first arena