What is the setting of The Giver, in a paragraph form?

Setting in any story is its time and place. There are few clues to the time in which The Giver takes place, and not really all that many details that allow us to visualize a setting. Somehow, though, this does not seem to detract at all from the story, since our own imaginations can fill in what is not described. 

I would guess that this story takes place in a contemporary time or the future. ...

Setting in any story is its time and place. There are few clues to the time in which The Giver takes place, and not really all that many details that allow us to visualize a setting. Somehow, though, this does not seem to detract at all from the story, since our own imaginations can fill in what is not described. 

I would guess that this story takes place in a contemporary time or the future.  There are elements that suggest that it is a relatively modern time, for example, the sophistication of the drugs, the fact that there is physical rehabilitation for those who have been injured, a fairly modern concept, what appears to be artificial insemination of some sort, and the fact that at least one person was selected to be an engineer.  What suggests it might be the future is how the Elders rule the society, as though in reaction to some cataclysmic event, for example, a plague or a war, some event that sent them running to set up rules to protect themselves from something dreadful out there in Elsewhere, almost a post-Apocalyptic kind of situation. Most dystopian novels are set in the future, and this is unquestionably a dystopian novel.

We know that this place is bounded on at least one side by a river, since it is across the river from the community that pilots land their planes with whatever supplies are needed.  We also know that the terrain is flat because Jonas has no experience of a hill until he receives a dream about sledding from the Giver.  There is some sort of climate control.  Jonas' experiences of sun, wind, and snow are experiences he has not had except for through the memories of The Giver. There are no animals, either, as we learn when Jonas explains to Lily that her comfort object, an elephant, used to actually exist, which he learned only from the Giver's memories.  So, this is a flat, featureless, sterile place, with no animals and whatever might be considered perfect weather all the time. The setting itself seems to reflect the Sameness of the people.