hive.metastore.warehouse.dir - Should it point to a physical directory

[Raj Hadoop]

Hi,
 
I am configurinig Hive. I ahve a question on the property 
hive.metastore.warehouse.dir.
 
Should this point to a physical directory. I am guessing it is a logical 
directory under Hadoop fs.default.name. Please advise whether I need to create 
any directory for the variable hive.metastore.warehouse.dir
 
Thanks,
Raj