Burgess and the Lake

Jack's home is Burgess, which is a small rural town in North America. The town in the past was modeled on colonial-era coal-mining towns in Pennsylvania, while the now days Burgess is a mix of various decades, you can find things from the '50 to today.

The creators put a lot of thought in this town, because it's the birthplace of the main character and Jack has a deep connection to it, so he keeps coming back to it, and here is also where he gets his first believer.

The world had to feel contemporary. It was important for us to make a film that could take place right around the corner. As magical and fantastical as the different realms are, we had to feel like these characters play a big role in our world
- Hanenberger, pp.146 in Art of Rise of the Guardians.

And when you look at it in the movie, it really does seem like any small town that you can find in real world, it somehow seems real, it's not perfect, actually it's far from perfect, but it's a place you can call home. Everything could really be happening not far from where you live.

The lake is the constant of the town, it's there from the beginning. The lake is a main point of Jack's existence, it's where he goes with his sister to skate, where he saves her, where he drowns, and where he transforms and is reborn as Jack Frost. It's the place I actually see as Jack's home, he comes back to that place, it's there where he first sees Jamie who is reading a book and makes it fly out of his hands. It's there that he takes his oath as a guardian at the end of the movie. The movie starts with the lake, where Jack wakes up and doesn't know anything but his name and ends with the lake, where he finally found his purpose.