The Elder Scrolls franchise takes place in a world called Nirn, with various land masses such as Akavir and Tamriel. The first game, Arena had all Tamriel explorable, Daggerfall had Hammerfel and High Rock explorable, both are provinces within Tamriel. Morrowind was set in an island inside the province of Morrowind, which is in Tamriel again. Oblivion was set in Cyrodiil, the imperial province and the heart of Tamriel. Skyrim is going to be set in Skyrim, north of Cyrodiil and land of the nords.

Have you ever noticed that big place on the map of Tamriel called "Skyrim"? I think it takes place there, although the trailer strongly hinted at the setting being Wisconsin and/ or German-occupied France circa 1944.

I'm pretty sure Skyrim is a city in France

I heard morrowind was huge, so big in fact that it made gamers frustrated with the size? Did morrowind include Vvardenfell? So arena was the only game where the whole of Nirn was explorable?

I thought it was next to Ontario?

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Well, when I see the map of WoW, I certainly wouldn't mind if Beth tried making all of Nirn.
Unfortunately Morrowind (the game) didn't include all of Vvardenfell.
Daggerfall included stuff around the Illiac Bay (northwest Tamriel). Beth once reported they actually had some employees try to traverse the expanse of the Daggerfall game. Apparently it took 2 real world weeks to do. Unfortunately a lot of it is cookie cutter generated randomness.


Ontario, Canada or Ontario, California? (Wouldn't be surprised if there were more places by that name).

No. Arena took place on the whole continent of http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Tamriel (<- click).

There's also the continents of: Atmora, Akavir, Yokuda. For reference to Nirn you may want to visit the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Nirn. (<- click)

And yes Morrowind took place on Vvardenfell, which is a volcanic island in the province of Morrowind. For reference you may want to take a peek at a http://images.uesp.net//c/c3/TamrielMap.jpg (<- click). The province of Morrowind is in the nort-east, and the island of Vvardenfell is the big island in the middle of it. And Morrowind wasn't at all that big, it just felt big.

All the basics and more can be found here. This should help with almost all your questions.
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/15282-elder-scrolls-lore-faq/

The OP is laughable. I can understand that you did not know what Skyrim was. I can't understand how you have been a member of the forums since 2008 and not have learned though.

You're probably thinking of Daggerfall. The game area of Morrowind was about 8 square miles, if I remember right, while Oblivion was 16. Many say that Morrowind "felt" bigger, likely as a combination of factors like slower walk speed, more terrain obstacles, less expansive fast travel, and so on, but I don't remember anyone saying it was "frustratingly" large. Daggerfall, however, used the combination of the much less advanced graphics of the time and random generation to create a map that was well over 60,000 square miles.

Edit: And yes, Vvardenfell is where TES3: Morrowind took place.

here is a friendly chart for you

Nirn (world) > Tamriel (Continent) > Skyrim (province/country) > Riften (City)

provided you know how simple relation operators work you can refer to this flow chart when ever you feel the need to ask something ever again, I would advise sticky noting it to your computer screen, or getting it tattooed into your arm.

Okay there are 6 continents in the world of Nirn.
Tamriel-Where all of the games have tooken place so far, most diverse continent, consists of Morrowind, Skyrim, Cyrodiil, Black Marsh, Valenwood, Summerset Isle, High Rock, and Hammerfell.
Atmora-Original origin of the Nords, extremely cold, there are still Nords their.
Yokuda-Origin of the Redguards, the whole continent sunk awhile back due to earth tremors or the Redguards themselves.
Pyondonea-Home to the Maormer "tropical elves". Consists of rain forests and beaches.
Thras-Home to the Sloads (slug-toads. duh). A plaque called the Thrassian Plaque originated from there and in response Tamriel assembled the All Flags Navy, who sunk the islands. The Sloads have recently brought the whole continent back to the surface.
Akavir- Home to the Tsaesci (serpent folk) Kamal (snow demons) Tang-Mo (monkey men) Ka Po-Tun (tiger-dragons). Origin of the dragons.
Nirn is one of 9 Planets in Mundus, each one of the nine divines. Mundus floats in Oblivion which contains all of the other realms belonging to the Daedra.
So as you can see the world is very vast and we have only scratched the surface.

The Elder Scrolls has had a history of having game titles that do not perfectly describe the location...

Daggerfall - just the name of a city, the game takes place in the province of Highrock.

Morrowind - its the name of the province but the game takes place on the island of Vvardenfell (also counting Solstheim, and Mornhold.)

Oblivion - you will visit this place in brief exciting missions, but the majority of the game takes place in Cyrodil.

Undoubtedly, the game will take place in Skyrim (at least in some parts) but I would not count on staying there the entire game.

Name: Skyrim
Place: Skyrim

And the dragons are invading so it doesn't need to be in Akavir.

The trailer seems to elude to more of an awakening rather than an invasion.