Insar is a town and the administrative center of Insarsky District

Insarsky District

Insarsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the fourteen in the Republic of Mordovia, Russia. Its administrative center is the town of Insar. District's population: 15,909 ; Population of Insar accounts for 61.6% of the district's population....

 of the Republic of Mordovia, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, located 77 kilometres (47.8 mi) southwest of Saransk

Saransk

Saransk is a city in central European Russia and the capital of the Republic of Mordovia, as well as its financial and economic center. It is located in the Volga basin at the confluence of the Saranka and Insar Rivers, about east of Moscow...

 at the confluence

Confluence

Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...

 of the Issa and Insarka Rivers. Population:

It was founded in 1648 as a fortress and a posad

Posad

A posad was a settlement, often surrounded by ramparts and a moat, adjoining a town or a kremlin, but outside of it, or adjoining a monastery in the 10th to 15th centuries. Usually it was inhabited by craftsmen and merchants, known as posadskiye lyudi .In the Russian Empire a posad was a small...

. Town status was granted to it in 1780; it was demoted to a rural locality in 1926. Town status was re-granted again in 1958.