It is located on the south bank of the river Ebro about 41 km south-east of Zaragoza, capital city of Aragon.

It referred to the fifth milestone of the Roman road from Celsa (Velilla de Ebro) to Caesar Augusta (Zaragoza).

[3] In the place called Las Dehesas, on the cliffs that dominate the river Ebro as it passes through the bridge of Gelsa, there is a settlement of the Early Iron Age.

The urban structure, with elongated rectangular house plans, corresponds to the classic schemes of this type of town in the middle Ebro Valley.

The cereal grains, the remains of hand mills and Spengler's freshwater pearl mussel shells… they imply that the economy of the settlement was based on agriculture and husbandry, although accompanied by the collection of some wild products directly from nature.

In the middle years of the 14th century, the Barony of Quinto -that also included Gelsa, Velilla de Ebro, Matamala and Alforque- finally went to the Luna family, by marriages and inheritances.

Pascual Madoz, in his Geographic-statistical-historical Dictionary of Spain of 1845, describes Quinto with these words: «it has 419 houses of little taste and comforts, which are distributed in 11 narrow and badly paved streets, and a square destined to the public sale of groceries».

Madoz makes special mention of the Bath House of Quinto, writing that "they consist of 2 sources of saline water, whose never denied fame achieved in the past to be superstitious".

When the battle front was established in Quinto, numerous and intense combats were fought in its environs, during around fourteen months.

The 26 August 1937, during the Battle of Belchite, the Spanish Republican forces (including the British Battalion of XV International Brigade) captured Quinto from the Nationalists, where they established its headquarters for about seven months.

The fierce house-to-house fighting, artillery shots and air bombardments meant the practical devastation of the town (including the historic parish church of the Assumption), especially during the two offensives.

The former Hermitage of Matamala is located almost 4 km from the town, situated between the railway line and the road from Quinto to Sástago, close to the river Ebro.

The hermitage is a modest example of popular typology of a primitive Gothic, attributable to the 13th century, and it is thought that it must have been the parish church of the former village of Matamala.

This chapel underwent several cuts, which together with the danger derived from the increase of the traffic both in the road and in the railroad, took to erect in 2001 a new hermitage of functional design in a different place.