HYERES, a town in the department of the Var in S.E. France, I I m. by rail E. of Toulon. Pop. (1931) 12,72o. The town of Hyeres was founded in the loth century, as a place of defence against pirates, and takes its name from the wires (hierbo in the Provencal dialect), or threshing-floors for corn, which then occu pied its site. It passed from the possession of the viscounts of Marseille to Charles of Anjou, count of Provence. The château on the summit of the hill was dismantled by Henri IV., but the town resisted in 1707 an attack made by the duke of Savoy. Hyeres is celebrated (as is also its fashionable suburb, Costebelle, nearer the seashore) as a winter health resort. The town is situ ated about 2 m. from the seashore on the sheltered south-western slope of a steep hill (669 ft. of the Maurettes chain) but is ex posed to the Mistral. To the south-west, across a narrow valley, is the suburb of Costebelle. The older portion of the town is surrounded, on the north and east, by remnants of its mediaeval walls, and has steep and dirty streets. The more modern quarter has broad boulevards and villas, with gardens, filled with semi tropical plants. The parish church of St. Louis was built originally in the 13th century by Franciscan friars, and restored in the i9th century. The plain between the new town and the sea has large nurseries, an excellent jardin d'acclimatation and many market gardens, which supply Paris and London with early fruits and vegetables, especially artichokes and roses in winter.