ISÈRE [anc. Isara], one of the chief rivers in France as well as of those flowing down on the French side of the Alpine chain. Its total length from its source to its junction with the Rhône is about 180 m., during which it descends a height of about 7550 ft. Its drainage area is about 4725 sq. m. It flows through the departments of Savoie, Isère and Drôme. This river rises in the Galise glaciers in the French Graian Alps and flows, as a mountain torrent, through a narrow valley past Tignes in a north-westerly direction to Bourg St Maurice, at the western foot of the Little St Bernard Pass. It now bends S.W., as far as Moutiers, the chief town of the Tarentaise, as the upper course of the Isère is named. Here it again turns N.W. as far as Albertville, where after receiving the Arly (right) it once more takes a south-westerly direction, and near St Pierre d’Albigny receives its first important tributary, the Arc (left), a wild mountain stream flowing through the Maurienne and past the foot of the Mont Cenis Pass. A little way below, at Montmélian, it becomes officially navigable (for about half of its course), though it is but little used for that purpose owing to the irregular depth of its bed and the rapidity of its current. Very probably, in ancient days, it flowed from Montmélian N.W. and, after passing through or forming the Lac du Bourget, joined the Rhône. But at present it continues from Montmélian in a south-westerly direction, flowing through the broad and fertile valley of the Graisivaudan, though receiving but a single affluent of any importance, the Bréda (left). At Grenoble, the most important town on its banks, it bends for a short distance again N.W. But just below that town it receives by far its most important affluent (left) the Drac, which itself drains the entire S. slope of the lofty snow-clad Dauphiné Alps, and which, 11 m. above Grenoble, had received the Romanche (right), a mountain stream which drains the entire central and N. portion of the same Alps. Hence the Drac is, at its junction with the Isère, a stream of nearly the same volume, while these two rivers, with the Durance, drain practically the entire French slope of the Alpine chain, the basins of the Arve and of the Var forming the sole exceptions. A short distance below Moirans the Isère changes its direction for the last time and now flows S.W. past Romans before joining the Rhône on the left, as its principal affluent after the Saône and the Durance, between Tournon and Valence. The Isère is remarkable for the way in which it changes its direction, forming three great loops of which the apex is respectively at Bourg St Maurice, Albertville and Moirans. For some way after its junction with the Rhône the grey troubled current of the Isère can be distinguished in the broad and peaceful stream of the Rhône.
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ISÈRE, a department of S.E. France, formed in 1790 out of the northern part of the old province of Dauphiné. Pop. (1906) 562,315. It is bounded N. by the department of the Ain, E. by that of Savoie, S. by those of the Hautes Alpes and the Drôme and W. by those of the Loire and the Rhône. Its area is 3179 sq. m. (surpassed only by 7 other departments), while its greatest length is 93 m. and its greatest breadth 53 m. The river Isère runs for nearly half its course through this department, to which it gives its name. The southern portion of the department is very mountainous, the loftiest summit being the Pic Lory (13,396 ft.) in the extensive snow-clad Oisans group (drained by the Drac and Romanche, two mighty mountain torrents), while minor groups are those of Belledonne, of Allevard, of the Grandes Rousses, of the Dévoluy, of the Trièves, of the Royannais, of the Vercors and, slightly to the north of the rest, that of the Grande Chartreuse. The northern portion of the department is composed of plateaux, low hills and plains, while on every side but the south it is bounded by the course of the Rhône. It forms the bishopric of Grenoble (dating from the 4th century), till 1790 in the ecclesiastical province of Vienne, and now in that of Lyons. The department is divided into four arrondissements (Grenoble, St Marcellin, La Tour du Pin and Vienne), 45 cantons and 563 communes. Its capital is Grenoble, while other important towns in it are the towns of Vienne, St Marcellin and La Tour du Pin. It is well supplied with railways (total length 342 m.), which give access to Gap, to Chambéry, to Lyons, to St Rambert and to Valence, while it also possesses many tramways (total length over 200 m.). It contains silver, lead, coal and iron mines, as well as extensive slate, stone and marble quarries, besides several mineral springs (Allevard, Uriage and La Motte). The forests cover much ground, while among the most flourishing industries are those of glove making, cement, silk weaving and paper making. The area devoted to agriculture (largely in the fertile valley of the Graisivaudan, or Isère, N.E. of Grenoble) is about 1211 sq. m.
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ISERLOHN, a town in the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the Baar, in a bleak and hilly region, 17 m. W. of Arnsberg, and 30 m. E.N.E. from Barmen by rail. Pop. (1900) 27,265. Iserlohn is one of the most important manufacturing towns in Westphalia. Both in the town and neighbourhood there are numerous foundries and works for iron, brass, steel and bronze goods, while other manufactures include wire, needles and pins, fish-hooks, machinery, umbrella-frames, thimbles, bits, furniture, chemicals, coffee-mills, and pinchbeck and britannia-metal goods. Iserlohn is a very old town, its gild of armourers being referred to as “ancient” in 1443.
ISFAHĀN (older form Ispahān), the name of a Persian province and town. The province is situated in the centre of the country, and bounded S. by Fars, E. by Yezd, N. by Kashān, Natanz and Irāk, and W. by the Bakhtiāri district and Arabistān. It pays a yearly revenue of about £100,000, and its population exceeds 500,000. It is divided into twenty-five districts, its capital, the town of Isfahān, forming one of them. These twenty-five districts, some very small and consisting of only a little township and a few hamlets, are Isfahān, Jai, Barkhār, Kahāb, Kararaj, Baraān, Rūdasht, Marbin, Lenjān, Kerven, Rār, Kiar, Mizdej, Ganduman, Somairam, Jarkūyeh, Ardistan, Kūhpāyeh, Najafabad, Komisheh, Chadugan, Varzek, Tokhmaklu, Gurji, Chinarūd. Most of these districts are very fertile, and produce great quantities of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, tobacco and opium. Lenjān, west of the city of Isfahān, is the greatest rice-producing district; the finest cotton comes from Jarkūyeh; the best opium and tobacco from the villages in the vicinity of the city.
The town of Isfahān or Ispahān, formerly the capital of Persia, now the capital of the province, is situated on the Zāyendeh river in 32° 39′ N. and 51° 40′ E.[1] at an elevation of 5370 ft. Its population, excluding that of the Armenian colony of Julfa on the right or south bank of the river (about 4000), is estimated at 100,000 (73,654, including 5883 Jews, in 1882). The town is divided into thirty-seven mahallehs (parishes) and has 210 mosques and colleges (many half ruined), 84 caravanserais, 150 public baths and 68 flour mills. The water supply is principally from open canals led off from the river and from several streams and canals which come down from the hills in the north-west. The name of the Isfahān river was originally Zendeh (Pahlavi zendek) rūd, “the great river”; it was then modernized into Zindeh-rūd, “the living river,” and is now called Zayendeh rūd, “the life-giving river.” Its principal source is the Janāneh rūd which rises on the eastern slope of the Zardeh Kuh about 90 to 100 m. W. of Isfahān. After receiving the Khursang river from Feridan on the north and the Zarīn rūd from Chaharmahal on the south it is called Zendeh rūd. It then waters the Lenjan and Marbin districts, passes Isfahān as Zayendeh-rūd and 70 m. farther E. ends in the Gavkhani depression. From its entrance into Lenjan to its end 105 canals are led off from it for purposes of irrigation and 14 bridges cross it (5 at Isfahān). Its volume of water at Isfahān during the spring season has been estimated at 60,000 cub. ft. per second; in autumn the quantity is reduced to one-third, but nearly all of it being then used for feeding the irrigation canals very little is left for the river bed. The town covers about 20 sq. m., but many parts of it are in ruins. The old city walls—a ruined mud curtain—are about 5 m. in circumference.