Arena

The arena is a large, enclosed, outdoor area where the Hunger Games are held each year. The arena is designed by the Gamemakers and changes every year. One year, it could be a dense forest, the next a freezing wasteland. The Gamemakers plant traps and cunning ideas into the arena, to entertain the Capitol audience. All arenas have a Cornucopia, where the tributes enter to begin the Games. The arenas were considered important historical landmarks, and were preserved after the conclusion of the Games. The arenas were also a popular tourist destination for many Capitol citizens, who would spend months vacation visiting the arena from their favorite games, where they would be able to rewatch the Games, visit the sites of the deaths and even take part in reenactments. After the end of the war, all the arenas were destroyed, and memorials to the hundreds of teenagers killed within their confines were constructed in their place.

50th Hunger Games
The 50th Hunger Games' arena is spectacular. It holds a big, beautiful meadow, with flowers, streams, pools, birds and a picturesque mountain. But everything is lethal. The tributes of this Games had to face harmless-looking squirrels which were in fact carnivorous; the picturesque mountain that was actually a volcano; flowers that squirted poison into your face; pink venomous birds; and dehydration due to the fact that the only sources of water that weren't toxic were from the bounty at the Cornucopia or rainfall. Haymitch Abernathy used the force field around the arena to stay alive and win the second Quarter Quell.

70th Hunger Games
The 70th Hunger Games' arena includes a dam that was broken during the games to wipe out many of the tributes. The dam was flooded because the Gamemakers thought that the Games were getting too "boring". Most of the tributes died because they drowned, but Annie Cresta, the strongest swimmer, survived and won the Hunger Games.

74th Hunger Games
The 74th Hunger Games' arena is a large expanse of various terrains. In the center, around the Cornucopia is a plain of hard packed dirt. In one direction there is a wheat field, this is not visible from the cornucopia, there is a steep downward slope and this area is a lot lower down than the rest of the arena. Thresh was hiding out in this part of the arena-the only time he left it was to go to the feast. In another direction there is a large lake, the careers set up camp next to this and it was their main source of water. In the other two directions there is a wood which makes up most of the arena, this is where Katniss Everdeen and most of the other tributes set up camp. This wood contains a stream that leads to the lake, several ponds, a variety of different trees, a rocky area with numerous caves that is next to the stream and several mutations such as tracker jackers and mockingjays in addition to natural animals such as rabbits, squirrels, deer and groosling. The wood is also rigged with Gamemaker traps such as devices that create fireballs. The Gamemakers changed the temperatures in the arena so that it was hot during the day and freezing during the night.

75th Hunger Games
The 75th Hunger Games' arena is set up like a clock. The 12 to 1 wedge consists of the tree that will periodically be struck by lightning during the 12th hour, which proves to be a very important factor later on in the novel. The other sections of the 'clock' are made up of different horrors that will be unleashed by the hour. The aforementioned 'horrors' consists of an acid fog, blood rain, an unknown beast, a tidal wave, carnivorous monkeys, jabberjays that repeat sounds of loved ones screaming in terror, unknown species of insects that emit loud clicking noises, and more which are not mentioned.

This arena is very small, and circular in shape, which tips Wiress off to the set-up of the clock mechanism. A powerful force-field surrounds it, and the Cornucopia lies in the middle of the arena, its tail pointing in the direction of the 12th hour, and it is surrounded by water and spokes that hold the tributes as they are first raised into the arena. The trees contained in the arena are full of the only water that can be consumed safely, and which have to be extracted by a spile, or by hacking at the bark.