Gelibolu is a town in Çanakkale Province of the Marmara Region, located in Eastern Thrace in the European part of Turkey.

The emperor Justinian I fortified Gallipoli and established important military warehouses for corn and wine there, of which some Byzantine ruins can still be seen.

The Catalan Company, a body of Almogavars, under Roger de Flor, established themselves here in 1306, and after the death of their leader massacred almost all the citizens; they were vainly besieged by the allied troops of Venice and the Byzantine Empire, and withdrew in 1307, after dismantling the fortifications.

In 1854 the town was occupied by the allied French and British armies during the Crimean War who strengthened the defensive constructions from 1357.

[4] The guns of Gallipoli guarded the sea of Marmara until 1878 when more fortifications were built when the Russians threatened to take possession of Constantinople.

Like the island Imbros off the western shore of the peninsula, Gallipoli had had a majority of Greek inhabitants from ancient times until World War I.

Extant documents give the names of three of its bishops of the period before the East–West Schism: Cyrillus, who was at the Council of Ephesus in 431; Harmonius, who took part in a synod that Patriarch Menas of Constantinople held in 536 to condemn the Miaphysite Patriarch Anthimus I of Constantinople; Melchisedec, who participated in the Second Council of Nicaea (787).