[3] Issoire is located on the river Couze, near its confluence with the Allier, 40 km (25 mi) SSE of Clermont-Ferrand on the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway to Nîmes.

[4] Issoire is situated in one of the fertile plains of the Petites Limagnes—basins that follow the Allier from its source in the Massif Central to the Grande Limagne north of Clermont-Ferrand and on to the Loire.

[5] Issoire (Iciodurum) is said to have been founded by the Arverni, and in Roman times rose to some reputation for its schools.

In the contest between the Leaguers and Henry IV, Issoire sustained further sieges, and never wholly regained its early prosperity.

The church of Saint-Austremoine is built on the site of an older chapel raised over the tomb of St. Austremoine (Stremonius), and affords an excellent specimen of the Romanesque architecture of Auvergne.