Lake Isabella is a census-designated place in the southern Sierra Nevada, in Kern County, California, United States. It is named after the Lake Isabella reservoir and located at its southwestern edge, 6 miles south of Wofford Heights in the Kern River Valley. The town of Lake Isabella is located 35 miles east-northeast of Bakersfield, at an elevation of 2,513 feet. The population was 3,466 at the 2010 census, up from 3,315 at the 2000 census.