HISSAR. (I) A town in the Tajik A.S.S.R. of Asiatic Russia in lat. 38° 3o' N., long. 68° 39' E., at a strategic point at the head of the defile carved out by the Kafirnigan river, a tributary of the Amu-Darya. It is the ancient capital of a once independent region where principalities rose and fell, finally incorporated with the former emirate of Bukhara. The town was at one time famous for its damascene swords and silk goods. Before the revolution it was the winter residence of the Beg of Hissar; in summer fever, malaria and mosquitoes drive the inhabitants to the hills. The moist and oppressive heat leads to an abundance of reeds, and Hissar at present is little more than a collection of reed thatched huts. (2) The Hissar Mountains 6,5oo to 9,80o ft. also in the Tajik A.S.S.R. form the snow-capped south ern arm of the bifurcation in long. 45' E. of the Alai Range, a western extension of the Tian-Shan. The Turkistan Range forms its northern arm, and a long spur, the Zarafshan Range branches off west of the Pakshif Pass, from which point the His sar Range turns off in a slightly south-west direction, with two deep curves on its northern slopes, and numerous spurs thrust ing into the plain on the south. The valleys here are well wooded on their lower slopes, with clumps of poplar, ash, birch, willow, maple, juniper, pear, hawthorn and walnut interspersed with cur rant bushes and shrubs. From these southern slopes the Surkhan and Kafirnigan flow into the Amu-Darya. In the narrow parallel valley between the Turkistan Range and the Zarafshan Range the glacier-fed Zarafshan river flows westward, while between the Zarafshan Range and the Hissar Range, its tributary, the Yag nob, flows parallel to it.
See W. R. Rickmers, The Duab of Turkestan, with bibliography