During the early modern period, Eisenach was a residence of the Ernestine Wettins and was visited by numerous representatives of Weimar classicism like Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

Eisenach is situated on the Hörsel river, a tributary of the Werra between the Thuringian Forest in the south, the Hainich mountains in the north-east and the East Hesse Highlands in the north-west.

Due to its convenient location at a bottleneck between the Thuringian Forest in the south and the Hainich mountains in the north, Eisenach benefitted from substantial west-east trade along Via Regia from Frankfurt to Erfurt and Leipzig and became a rich merchant town.

Between 1498 and 1501, the young Martin Luther attended the St. George's Latin school in Eisenach in preparation for his following studies at the University of Erfurt.

Luther referred to Eisenach as ein Pfaffennest ("a clerical backwater"), since during his time there were 300 monks and nuns per 1,000 inhabitants.

In 1817, the Wartburg Festival took place in Eisenach, a meeting of students advocating moves towards a more liberal, constitutional state and a unification of Germany.

[6] In preparation for World War II, new barracks were established in Eisenach and the car industry started the production of military equipment.

The BMW car factory was socialized and under the new name EMW produced the Wartburg, the so-called "Mercedes of the East".

Nevertheless, the financial situation of Eisenach remained difficult, unemployment stayed above average and car production suffered from the business problems of Opel.

Eisenach abuts the municipalities Krauthausen, Mihla, Lauterbach, Bischofroda and Berka vor dem Hainich in the north, Hörselberg-Hainich and Wutha-Farnroda in the east and Marksuhl, Wolfsburg-Unkeroda and Gerstungen in the south (all situated in the district Wartburgkreis) and Werra-Meißner-Kreis (Hesse, municipality of Herleshausen in the west).

The town's topography creates a microclimate with mostly adequate air circulation along the west-eastern valley which made Eisenach a resort at the end of the 19th century.

Light snowfall mainly occurs from December through February, but snow cover does not usually remain for long in the inner town valley.

It occurred after reunification for a short time in the 1990s, but most of the suburban areas are situated within the administrative town borders.

[10] The most important regions of origin of people who have moved to Eisenach are rural areas of Thuringia as well as foreign countries like Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.

Like in other eastern German cities, only a small share of Eisenach's population is foreign: circa 2.3% are non-Germans by citizenship and overall 4.9% are classified as "migrants" (according to the 2011 EU census).

Due to the official atheism of the former German Democratic Republic, most of the population is non-religious: 23.0% are members of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany and 4.4% are Catholics (according to the 2011 EU census).

[5]: 139 Agriculture is not very important in Eisenach, because of the hilly terrain, the—compared to central Thuringia further east—less fertile soil and the relatively humid climate.

In 2012, there were a total of 19 industrial companies with more than 20 workers in Eisenach, employing 5,600 people and generating a turnover of more than 1.8 billion euros.

The early-modern period brought extensions to the west (Katharinenstraße), to the north (Jakobstraße) and to the east (in front of Nikolaitor gate).

South of the historic centre, mansion districts were established on the hillsides of Mariental valley, where the rich factory owners, rentiers and other upper-class people lived.

After World War I, the town extended further to the north on the other bank of Hörsel river, where some new residential areas were developed before 1990.

The first freely elected mayor after German reunification was Hans-Peter Brodhun of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who served from 1990 to 2000.

Local trains, also once an hour, start in Eisenach to Halle via Erfurt, to Sonneberg via Meiningen and Eisfeld and to Bebra via Gerstungen.

There are four Bundesstraßen connecting Eisenach: The Bundesstraße 7 runs to Kassel in the north-west, whereas its eastern branch to Gotha was annulled in 2010.

Downtown traffic is concentrated on Rennbahn street, which often leads to congestion due to a large number of commuters and the town's narrow topography.

Kindel Airfield, 12 km (7 mi) east of Eisenach, is a former Soviet military base, today used for private aviation.

These all connect points of touristic interest, the first along the Werra valley from the Thuringian Forest to the Weser river in Hann.

Münden, the second through the Thuringian Forest along its crest to the Saale river near Hof and the third follows near the medieval Via Regia from the Werra valley/Eisenach via Gotha, Erfurt and Weimar to Altenburg.

Public transport in Eisenach is by a bus network servicing the downtown areas as well as the neighbouring towns and villages.

There are two public and one evangelical gymnasium in Eisenach named after personalities of the cities history:[15] Another form of secondary school is the Realschule where students graduate after a total of ten years of education.