Isthmus
in geography, a narrow neck of land joining two larger portions, as the Isthmus of Suez and the Isthmus of Panama. The name was often employed by the ancients without any addition to designate the Isthmus of Corinth, joining the Peloponnesus to continental Hellas. Here were celebrated the Isthmian games.
ISTRIA (is'trē-ä), an Austrian margraviate until 1918-now a part of Italy, forming a peninsula in the N. E. corner of the Adriatic Sea, between the Gulf of Trieste and the Gulf of Fiume or Quarnero. Though a mountainous land, often swept by the sirocco and bora winds, it yields excellent olive oil and wine. Area, with the adjacent islands, 1,812 square miles; pop. about 400,000.
Capital, Rovigno. After the collapse of Austria in the World War in 1918, Allied forces occupied Pola, the naval base on the peninsula.